Black and grey botanical tattoo of a dandelion seed head with drifting seeds across the inner forearm, in fine stippled dotwork.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dandelion seeds blowing across a forearm

Botanical · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A dandelion seed head sits near the wrist, with individual seeds drifting upward and outward across the forearm. The linework is fine and the seed head is built from stippled dots and short strokes, with soft shading that gives it volume. The image is black and white, and the composition places the seed head in the lower left with the scattered seeds trailing up toward the upper right.

Botanical Dotwork Forearm Dandelion Seed head Seed Stipple

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

The last of the dandelion clocks went over the garden wall this morning before I'd got the bread in, so I am writing with flour on my fingers and the back door propped open with a boot. Mother had us blow them the way she did when we were small, one puff for each hour, so that a clock standing a week in the lane came apart in seven breaths. Vera still does it wrong and calls out eleven when it is only nine.

Keep reading

The seeds never go straight. They catch the wind off the hop yard and climb, then turn and go over the hedge in a line, some stopping on the gate, some on Mr Fenn's hat, one that I swear went right up to the church roof. I tried to save you a clock in the envelope, but by the time I had folded the paper the head had shed to a bare green stalk, so I have put one loose seed in the fold instead. It is very small and may be dust by the time the post reaches Valparaíso. Keep it anyway.

The Marigold sailed on Thursday, so you will have been at sea four days before this reaches the dock. Mrs Hale says a ship's clock is only ever a bell, which is no sort of clock at all. I told her a dandelion will do the work of a bell if you are patient enough to count.

So here is my arrangement. I will blow a clock every Sunday at noon and count the seeds still on the stalk when I stop. Whatever number is left, you are to count out the same number of days. When the stalk is bare, you are to start for home.

Love, Nell