Realistic colour tattoo of orange, red and yellow hibiscus flowers with a blue dragonfly and black swirls, across a shoulder and upper arm.

Hibiscus and dragonfly tattoo on shoulder and arm

Realism · Shoulder · Colour · Photo

Three hibiscus flowers in coral, red and yellow dominate the design, with a blue dragonfly near the shoulder top and a small red ladybird among the leaves. The petals and leaves are shaded with smooth gradients and fine highlights, giving a three-dimensional, photographic effect. Black swirling linework frames the flowers and sits behind the dragonfly, and the design wraps from the top of the shoulder down the upper arm.

Realism Botanical Shoulder Upper arm Hibiscus Flower Dragonfly Ladybird Leaves Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nell had been told the hibiscus would not survive the frost, so she carried the last cutting across the yard in her coat pocket at six, before the boiler clicked on. The glasshouse smelled of wet soil and paraffin heater. Old Tom Pargeter had already gone home with his cough, leaving the lamp burning over the potting bench as if he meant to come back.

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Three plants stood in the far bay, their flowers the colour of tinned peaches and rust, the yellow one scorched brown at the edges. Under a leaf she found a ladybird, red as a pillar box, sitting perfectly still as though it had been waiting for someone to notice it. Nell left it where it was and didn't touch the leaf.

The dragonfly came in late morning through the vent Tom always left cracked. It hung over the bench, blue as a gas flame, then settled on the cane she had tied with green twine. Nell thought of the letter from the council folded in her apron pocket, the price per acre written in biro, and the word sale underlined twice.

She decided the cutting would go into a pot on her own kitchen windowsill, where the radiator ran hot and the glass fogged by teatime. The dragonfly lifted, circled the hibiscus once, and slipped out through the gap. Nell watered the roots, wrote the date on a label, and shut the vent behind her.