A grid of eight black fine line tattoos of wildflowers, sprigs, a leaf, a plant pot and outlined hands, placed on ribs, upper arms and forearms.

Fine line botanical tattoos collage

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

This collage shows eight close-up photographs of small tattoos, mostly sprigs and stems of wildflowers, daisies and leaves, with one potted plant and two outlined hands holding flowers. The linework is fine and even, in black ink with no shading, and the designs range from tiny single leaves to larger hand and flower compositions. Most images are framed tightly on the skin, with a few showing ribs, upper arms and forearms against plain backgrounds.

Fine line Botanical Ribs Upper arm Forearm Flower Sprig Leaf Hand Daisy Wildflower Stem Script

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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 seed trays had been stacked against the potting shed wall since Tuesday, and Maureen was still picking grit out of her cuffs when the nursery van pulled into the yard. "Cut them before the sun gets up," she said, handing you the secateurs without looking round. "Stems this thin go limp if you dawdle."

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You worked along the hedge where the wild daisies had pushed up through the gravel, snipping sprigs no longer than your palm. Yarrow, wild carrot, a handful of feverfew gone to lace. Maureen wanted them bundled in threes with damp kitchen roll and a rubber band, never string, because string bruises. Ten bundles for the hospice in Spalding, ten for the bus shelter on the Deeping road, where the old men played draughts under the timetable. Nobody had asked for flowers that cost nothing. Nobody had to.

By eleven the van smelled of crushed leaves and diesel. You sat on the tailgate with a flask of tea and drew the stems on the back of a seed invoice, one fine line at a time, so the leaves would look like they had been pressed flat by a careful thumb. Maureen leaned over your shoulder and said the hand you'd sketched in the corner was wrong, the fingers too long, and you said it was meant to be holding something, and she said, "Well, it's holding nothing now."

She took the invoice, folded it into the glovebox with the mileage book, and patted it twice. "Keep that drawing somewhere. Somebody always needs one when the flowers are gone." Then she started the engine, and the bundles shifted and sighed in the back all the way down the lane.