Black and grey floral sleeve tattoo on a forearm, with a wing, a swirling shape, large letters and a triangular geometric motif, worn beside a metal wristwatch.

Floral sleeve with wing on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A forearm, partly covered by a dark sleeve, carries a black and grey tattoo of shaded flowers and leaves. A wing shape, a swirling dark form, large outlined letters and a geometric triangle appear among the botanical elements. The shading is soft and the composition runs along the length of the arm, with the background blurred and a watch on the wrist.

Traditional Botanical Forearm Flower Wing Swirl Letter Triangle Leaves

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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

Brother Anselm has set the gold leaf on the table beside your ink pots and told you not to breathe near it. You have spent three winters learning to draw a vine that does not look like a vine, and this morning he finally lets you work on the border of the Gospel of Saint Hild, the great initial that opens the psalter. Above the bench, the abbot's letter is still pinned to the wall, asking for the book by Lady Day, and candle smoke has already darkened its corner.

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You begin with the flowers because they are forgiving. Anselm taught you to shade a petal from the outside inward, pressing the nib lightly so the blossom seems to lift off the vellum, then to leave a sliver of bare skin for the light. Your first attempt looks like a cabbage. The second looks like a cabbage that has been to Rome. By the third you have stopped counting, and the border is climbing the margin toward the big letter, leaves curling around it as if they were trying to read it.

The letter is an A, tall as your forearm, its crossbar a thin hard triangle that Anselm insists must be measured with a compass and a prayer. Beside it you draw a wing, which was never in the exemplar. When Anselm sees it he says nothing for so long that the bell for Sext rings twice.

Then he takes the pen from your fingers, adds one dark curve along the wing's edge, and says the letter no longer belongs to the abbey. It belongs to whoever reads it next. You leave the wing unfinished on purpose, and that night the flowers hold their gold a little longer than the candle does.