Neo-traditional tattoo of a white dog's head looking up, framed by red roses and green leaves, on an upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dog portrait and roses on upper arm

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A white dog's head in profile, looking upwards, is shaded in soft greys with a bold black outline. Red roses with green leaves and small yellow dots sit beneath it, with pink accents on the dog's ears. The bright, flat colours contrast with the grey shading, and the design fills the upper arm and shoulder area.

Neo-trad Upper arm Shoulder Dog Portrait Rose Flower Leaves Berry

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last field outside Doncaster had gone to mud by the third week of October, and the big top sagged over the ring like a wet sail. Nell Harker stood at the entrance with a paint pot in one hand and a brush in the other, touching up the roses on the banner that had once announced the Halloran Brothers' Grand Menagerie. The reds had faded to the colour of old brick. She was not sure anyone would still read the lettering once the wind got under it.

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Bramble watched her from the step of the caravan, white as a dropped napkin, his ears tipped with pink where the rain had caught them. He had been the finest act the company owned, the one who looked up at the high wire and held his gaze until the flyer let go, and the crowds had gasped at the trust in it. Now the flyers were gone, the wire was coiled in the hay store, and the only man still coming to the gate had a van, a lead of new brown leather, and a cheque folded in his breast pocket.

"He'll be worth more to an outfit that still runs a fanfare," the man said, not unkindly. Nell looked at the cheque and then at the dog, who had turned his head towards the rigging as if waiting for a cue. "Give me until morning," she said. He nodded and went back to his van with the heater running.

That night she climbed the ladder into the rigging with a torch in her teeth and a tin of red paint hooked to her belt, and she painted one last rose onto the cross-beam where the flyers used to swing. When she came down, Bramble was sitting beneath it with his face tipped up, the way he had always done. She sat in the wet hay beside him and let him keep looking up.