Full arm sleeve of colourful roses, peonies and small blossoms with green leaves, tattooed on an upper arm and forearm.

Full floral sleeve on an arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A full sleeve of roses, peonies and smaller blossoms with leaves covers the arm from the shoulder to the wrist. The petals are shaded with soft gradients in pink, orange, red and cream, with finer linework defining the leaves and stems. The arm is photographed in profile against a brick wall and window, with the sleeve filling most of the frame.

Botanical Realism Upper arm Forearm Rose Peony Flower Blossom Leaves Sleeve Floral

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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 peonies were the problem, as they always are. Mrs Aldridge had set her heart on them for her daughter's wedding in June, and by the Thursday before, the only grower in Sussex with glasshouses had lost half his crop to a late frost. He rang me at six in the morning, sounding like a man apologising to a dog. I drove over in the van with the back seats folded down and came home with forty heads wrapped in the Argus, cold as well water.

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We did the rest in the church hall, the way you do when the hall is the only room with a sink. Mrs Aldridge's sister kept touching the blooms as if checking they were still real. There were roses from her own garden, a deep apricot that went orange at the edges, and pale cream tea roses that smelled of nothing until you put your face right into them. I wired the stems and tucked in forget-me-nots and tiny white blossom that Joan from the post office swore was spiraea, though I'd have called it snow in a bad mood.

The bride came in late, cross about a button, and stopped when she saw the table. She didn't say anything. She picked up one of the peonies, turned it to the window and looked at the pink working inwards from the petal edges, as if someone had breathed colour into it from the centre. Then she put it back exactly where it had been.

I think about that whenever a client asks for a full sleeve in one sitting. Everyone wants the bloom at its fullest. The best work is the bit where it is still deciding to open.