Blackwork armband tattoo on the forearm with white negative-space daisy and leafy flowers set in a solid black band.

Daisy and flowers in a blackwork armband

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A solid black band wraps around the forearm, with a daisy and several smaller flowers and leaves cut out in bare skin. The daisy has a smiling face at its centre, and the flowers are shown as clean, simple silhouettes with no shading. The ink is black only, and the blurred background of dark denim shorts keeps the focus on the arm.

Blackwork Botanical Forearm Daisy Flower Leaves Smiley face Armband

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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 tarpaulin came off the Mary Ann in March, stiff with two winters of salt, and my uncle Dougie cut it into bands the width of a hand. Every boy on Scarrow wore one when the tide-watch started, a black strip above the elbow so the ferry men could see who was out on the rocks in the dark.

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Dougie never cut a plain band. He had a bread knife and a tin of chalk, and he drew what was growing by the pier wall that spring: thistles, a bit of sea-kale, and the daisies that pushed up through the cracks in the concrete. The daisy on mine he gave a face, because he said anyone standing in the wind for six hours wanted something on their arm that looked pleased to see them. He cut the petals out so the bare cloth showed through, pale as a gull's belly.

The winter I turned sixteen the ferry was late four nights running, and the rocks iced over. I was on the point with a torch when the boat's light finally swung round the headland, and I held my arm up into it so the skipper could read the band. The daisy caught the beam and went white against the black, grinning at him across the water.

He flashed back twice, which meant come home, and I did. Dougie never asked what I'd been doing out there. He just tapped the cloth on my sleeve, checked the petals were all still there, and said the flowers had done their job.