Colour tattoo of a pink blossom branch with three purple butterflies across the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Butterflies and blossom branch on a shoulder blade

Botanical · Back · Colour · Photo

A branch of pink blossoms runs diagonally across the upper back, with one large purple butterfly on the left and two smaller purple butterflies, one on the left edge and one on the right. The flowers and butterflies use soft, blended shading with darker outlines and highlights, giving a painterly, watercolour-like finish. Pinks and purples dominate the composition against the plain skin tone.

Botanical Back Blossom Cherry blossom Butterfly Branch Flower

Find an artist for this

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

Dear Tom, The cherry trees in the old orchard at Holm Keep came into flower the same week the carrier brought your letter, so I have been carrying both about in my apron pocket like stones. The keep has no roof now, only the solar and a stair that climbs into open sky. Father would have hated the state of the place, but the trees don't know they are in ruins and blossom as if the abbey still rang its bells.

Keep reading

This morning I took the stair up with his old paint box. The blossom is loud pink where the petals are young and paler at the edges where they have begun to fall. The butterflies that rise from the moat are that bruised purple you tried to name for him when we were children, the colour of a violet left too long between the pages of a book. I got three of them down before the wind lifted the paper. They kept settling on the same branch, as if it were a place they had agreed on between themselves.

The steward says the castle will be sold at Michaelmas, and the new owners want the orchard cleared for a car park. I told him nothing grows in a car park but spite. He laughed, then stood looking at the branch for a long time with his hat in his hands.

Come home by the spring. I will keep one bloom back for you and press it inside your copy of the Odyssey. If it has gone brown by the time you read this, forgive me. The butterflies never wait for anyone. Your sister, Ada