Black and grey realism tattoo of blossom and leaves across the chest, shoulder and upper arm of a bare-skinned person.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Blossom and leaves across chest and shoulder

Botanical · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A branch of open blossoms, a closed bud and several large leaves wraps from the chest over the shoulder and onto the upper arm. The shading is soft and detailed, with fine veins on the leaves and gradual greys that give the petals depth. The image is a black and white photograph against a dark background, so the composition centres on the tattoo's flowing diagonal line.

Botanical Realism Chest Shoulder Upper arm Blossom Flower Leaves Branch Bud

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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

Sit nearer the oven, love, the cold gets into the flour before it gets into you. My grandmother opened this bakery the winter the orchard above Hollin Brow was felled for timber, and she never forgave the men who did it. Every March she walked up the lane before the bakers' bell and came back with a branch of apple blossom held out in front of her like a lantern, the petals still shut tight as fists.

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She set it in a stoneware jug on the proving shelf, where the warm air could coax it open. Nobody asked her why. The bread rose under it all spring, and flour dust settled on the white petals until they looked dipped in snow. A carter named Owen Pryce, who drove the milk round at four, swore the loaves tasted sweeter in blossom time. He would stand at the counter with his cap in his hands, waiting for the first tray, and never once asked the price.

The frost came hard the year the valley iced over. Owen didn't come. Grandmother climbed the lane alone in the dark, slipped on the frozen stones, and when the neighbours found her she had a branch clutched to her coat, bruised and bare. She had gone to the last tree still standing, and nobody ever knew whether that bud was meant for Owen or for herself.

She set the bare branch in the jug anyway. By morning one bud had opened, the only white thing in the whole shop, and she sold the first loaf of the day to an empty counter, leaving the coins beside the cap that had never come back.