Traditional tattoo on a forearm showing an eye in a dark shape, red roses and a banner reading Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

Eye, roses and banner quote on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A bold traditional design runs down the forearm, centred on an open eye with a yellow iris above a dark shape edged in yellow. Red roses and leaves frame the top and bottom, and a pale banner across the middle carries the words EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL AND NOTHING HURT in black lettering. The thick black outlines and flat red, yellow and grey fills give it a classic, high-contrast look against the skin.

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

You kneel in the bed behind the shed where the red roses have run wild over the trellis, pulling bindweed from between their roots while wasps drift over the windfalls. Your grandmother always said the roses wanted cutting back hard in March, and you never believed her until the thorns caught the back of your hand and drew a line of beads you let dry in the sun.

Keep reading

Above the gate hangs the painted eye she had a sign-writer put up the summer your grandfather died, a yellow iris staring out over the lane so the magpies would know they were watched. The paint has flaked around the pupil. Inside the shed, under a tin of creosote, you find a seed packet with her looping hand on the back: everything was beautiful and nothing hurt, written in pencil, then crossed out, then written again smaller.

You sit back on your heels and read it twice. The struck-through line sits above the new one like a healed scar. You think of the years she spent telling the neighbours the garden was fine, and how she walked the roses every evening, touching each bloom as if counting them in.

You tuck the packet into your pocket, lift the bindweed into the bin, and leave the rest of the bed for spring. Before you go in, you look up at the eye over the gate, still watching the lane, and you wonder who it was painted for in the end.

More like this

Traditional style tattoo of a dark hand with a red eye, orange flames, a tower and a banner reading In the Eye of the Beholder, on an upper arm.
Hand and eye with flames on an upper arm
Traditional style tattoo of a red and yellow rose with green leaves and a black banner of lettering across the inner forearm.
Red rose and banner lettering on a forearm
Traditional style colour tattoo on a forearm showing a swallow, a red and black nautical star, two dice and red-starred cylinders on a teal background.
Swallow, dice and nautical star on a forearm
Black and grey dotwork tattoo on a forearm showing an eye inside a triangle above an ornate mandala with swirling floral details.
All-seeing eye mandala on forearm
Black script lettering quote across the lower leg above the ankle, with blue and orange swirling star shapes in colour.
Script quote with swirling stars on lower leg
Black and grey realism tattoo of three roses and a compass with script on a upper thigh.
Roses and compass with script on a thigh
Traditional-style tattoo on an arm of a hand holding an hourglass, with a yellow rose, green leaves, seed pods and a red background.
Hand holding hourglass with yellow rose
Neo-traditional colour tattoo of a heart-shaped Ouija board with a moon, a red gem and hanging drops, on the calf.
Ouija board heart with moon and gem
Colour neo-traditional tattoo on a forearm of a compass, red roses and a banner reading wherever you go, with a small oval plaque at the top.
Compass, roses and banner on a forearm
Neo-traditional thigh tattoo of an ornate black frame holding handwritten script, with swallows and red roses below.
Script frame with birds and roses on a thigh
Traditional style tattoo of a pocket watch with a chain, a red poppy and an eye in a triangle on the watch face, on a forearm.
Pocket watch and poppy on a forearm
Black and grey realism tattoo of a skull merged with a Roman numeral clock face and an eye, with a bare tree and birds, on an upper arm.
Skull, clock and eye on upper arm

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.