Small black and grey fine line dandelion tattoo with drifting seeds on the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dandelion seeds tattoo on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A small dandelion seed head sits on bare skin, with a stem below it and tiny seeds drifting up and across the upper back towards the shoulder. The linework is fine and delicate, with soft grey shading giving the seed head some depth. A dark strap crosses the frame, held by a hand with teal glitter nails, and the background is softly blurred.

Fine line Botanical Back Dandelion Seed Stem 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

Now sit still, the lot of you, and mind the kettle. Hear what happened the winter the pit wheel stopped and the men of Harrowgate Row had nothing to do but wait for their wages to be argued over. Your great-grandmother Nan Ida used to say the spoil heap above the colliery was the ugliest thing God ever tipped out of the ground, grey shale and black dust, and nothing would grow on it but spite.

Keep reading

But every March the seed heads came up through the cinders, yellow as a yolk, and every May they went to clocks. Ida had a ritual for it. She'd climb the heap in her clogs with a paper bag, pick the clocks before the wind got them, and sit on the top where she could see the chimneys and the sea beyond them. Each puff, she'd say a name. Her husband's name, who was underground at Ferndale. The Dunlop boy's name, who had gone to Canada and never written. Then she'd say, 'Go on, then, the lot of you,' and the seeds went off over the rooftops like a flock of small grey letters nobody had posted.

The winter the pit closed, the men marched to London and came back with nothing but cold feet. Ida's husband came home last, and he found her sitting on the heap with an empty bag. 'I've run out of names,' she said. 'Give me one.' He thought about it for a long time, then gave her his own.

Nobody in Harrowgate Row has picked a clock off that heap since. Go up and look if you like. The shale's gone green now, and the dandelions are thick as wool. Mind where you put your feet.