Black and grey fine line botanical tattoo of hibiscus-style flowers, leaves and buds on the centre of the chest, with hands resting either side.

Floral bouquet on the centre of the chest

Fine line · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A cluster of large open flowers, closed buds, leaves and small berry-like stems forms a triangular bouquet that points upwards from the lower chest. The design is drawn in fine single-needle linework with delicate hatching on the petals and leaf veins, and soft grey shading gives the flowers some depth. It is entirely black and grey, and the hands framing the top of the image sit on the skin without covering the design.

Fine line Botanical Chest Flower Leaves Bud Berry Branches Bouquet

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 band at the Marlowe Ballroom has been playing the same slow waltz since eight, and you have already danced it twice with Ronnie Hale before he remembers to ask your name. You tell him. You tell him you are Win, short for Winifred, and that your mother sells cut flowers from a barrow outside the station. He says he has seen the barrow. He says the sweet peas were the best thing on Bridge Street. You let him believe it was the sweet peas.

Keep reading

At the interval the hall smells of spilt lemonade and Brylcreem and the cloakroom girl's hot iron. You go to the cloakroom anyway, because your aunt Dot pinned a spray of white blooms under your collar and it has worked loose. Her pins are rusted and the stems have bent. The open flowers are soft as paper and the closed buds at the base are hard as peppercorns. You fix it in the mirror with a hairgrip and a steady hand, the way she taught you, leaves turned outward and the berries kept low where the dress gathers.

When you come back, the band strikes up a quickstep and Ronnie holds out both hands as if he has been practising. He spins you until the lights blur, and somewhere in the turn he says the spray looks like the ones his nan pressed in the family Bible. You laugh so hard you miss the next step, and he doesn't mind.

Years later, when the barrow has gone and the Marlowe is flats with washing lines, you will find the flowers flattened in Dot's hymnal, the petals still the colour of weak tea. You will remember that he never did say whether he liked the flowers or only liked the way you wore them.