Small fine line black tattoo of a lavender sprig with two leaves on the inner forearm, shown against a white textured cloth.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lavender sprig on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small sprig of lavender runs vertically along the inner forearm, with a cluster of rounded buds at the top, a thin stem and two small leaves near the base. The design is drawn in single, even black outlines with no shading or fill, so the flower and leaves are defined only by their edges. The tattoo sits in the centre of the frame against a plain white textured background, with the skin lit softly from the left.

Fine line Botanical Forearm Lavender Flower Stem Leaves Sprig

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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

Mind the third stair, it gives under you like a bad tooth. Sit there by the window, where the draught can't find you. Now. You want to know about Mrs Pardoe's lavender, and I'll tell it, though nobody in this house believes a word I say before my tea.

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Nineteen fifty-two, that summer the sea came over the promenade rail twice. Agnes Pardoe kept the house then, the one with the blue door, and she had a tin bath of lavender on the back step that the gulls never touched. They leave it alone, see, same as they leave the chapel bell. A man came off the Scarborough boat with a sack and a sketchbook, and he sat on that step drawing the plant with a pen so fine it hardly lifted off the paper. Every stem was one unbroken line. He said a shaded flower looked like it was trying to hide, and he wanted this one standing out in the open.

He drew the buds as little rings, one above another, like beads on a wet string. Agnes asked what he'd charge. He said a cup of tea and the stub of a candle, because the light went early in that corner and he couldn't finish. She let him stay three nights. On the last, he left the sketch under her teapot, a single sprig with two leaves at the foot, and a note that said the outline was the only honest part of anything.

I've kept that drawing forty years in my Bible, and every time I've wanted to hide something, I've wanted it shaded. Agnes never shaded a thing in her life. Her sons went to sea, and her husband went with them, and the house stayed open all winter for whoever came up the lane. So that's your lavender, love. Drink your tea before it goes cold, and mind the third stair on your way up.