Black and grey realism roses with leaves and a script quote tattooed on the outer thigh.

Black and grey roses with quote on thigh

Realism · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

Three shaded roses with leaves sit around a handwritten script quote in black ink on the thigh. The roses use soft grey shading and fine detail on the petals, while the lettering is bold, dark and set in a flowing curve across the centre. The image is cropped close to the skin with a plain light background, and the tattoo is the sole focus.

Realism Lettering Botanical Thigh Rose Leaves Quote 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 has got into the rose canes along the lane again, so you spend the first hour of grey light with secateurs and a feed sack, cutting back what Nan planted the spring she married. Dad's gloves are two sizes too big and the wet has already found the gap at your knuckles. Behind you the farmhouse kitchen window is steamed white, and the kettle has been on since five because Mum will not let anyone else make the tea on a morning like this.

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Nan's handwriting is still on the card above the Aga, curling at one corner where the heat has got to it. She copied the lines out of a calendar the winter the lower field flooded and the cattle had to be moved to the barn, and she pinned them up where nobody could miss them. You used to read them aloud to the dog while you waited for the bus, never quite sure whether they were meant as a joke or as a kindness.

By noon the sky has gone the colour of pewter and the pile of cut wood is taller than the gate. Most of the bushes are finished, black and split at the base. But the big one by the water trough still shows a thread of green when you scrape a thumbnail down the bark, so you leave its three leaning canes standing and tie them loosely to the post with baler twine.

You go in, stamp the mud off on the step, and pull a chair up to the stove. Your fingers are too stiff to hold a cup, so you set the tea beside the card and let the warmth reach the paper. Outside, the light is already going, and the frost will want covering tonight.