Realistic black and grey roses with leaves tattooed up a forearm, with a small script line on the wrist above.

Black and grey roses on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A cluster of several roses in different stages of bloom runs up the outer forearm, with shaded leaves filling the gaps between them. The rendering uses fine linework and soft grey shading to give the petals depth and volume. The forearm is shown against a pale blue top and ripped denim, with a small script tattoo visible near the wrist.

Realism Botanical Forearm Rose Leaves Flower Script

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The frost came early again, so I have moved the cuttings under the sash and propped the potting shed door open with a brick. Mr Halloran says the Albas will not take in this cold, but I have seen them hold on worse. You asked in your last letter what the roses are for, and I could not answer you properly then. I can now.

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Here is what I mean. On the back bench there is one stem with four heads on it. The first is a closed bud no bigger than a thimble, tight as a fist. Next comes a half-open one, its outer petals curled back like a badly held hand of cards. Then a full bloom, so heavy it nods over the rim of the pot. The last has already gone over, and its petals drop onto the soil in a slow brown rain. Four roses on one plant, with the leaves shading the gaps where the light would otherwise have landed.

I drew them on the back of an invoice in pencil, pressing hard so the grey would sit deep. You cannot make a petal stand forward without leaving the dark behind it, I found. Mr Halloran laughed and said I should draw the bills instead, since they would be paid faster. But I sent the sketch to the Leeds nursery with the cuttings, and they wrote back that the buyer wanted the whole stem, all four stages, drawn the same way.

So I am sending you a pressed one from the going-over bloom, flattened between two pages of an old almanac. Keep it somewhere the light cannot reach. It will hold its shape longer that way, and it will still be there when the rest of us have gone to the same soil.