Black botanical vine tattoo with leaves running across the back of a hand and down the fingers, with a second black tattoo band on another hand beside it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Leafy vine tattoo across the back of a hand

Botanical · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

Two hands rest on an orange fabric surface, with silver metallic nail polish on both. The hand on top carries a black leafy vine design that spreads over the back of the hand and trails down onto the fingers, with bold solid shapes and few fine details. The second hand shows a black sweeping band of flourishes across the back of the hand and wrist, and the warm background contrasts strongly with the dark ink.

Botanical Hand Leaves Vine Floral Flourish Band Hand

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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

Dear Nell, the bindweed has got into the Pippin rows again, and Mr Tallis says if I touch it with a blade he will have my wages. So I have been pulling it by hand all week, which is how I came to be kneeling in the long grass at six o'clock with the sun going down behind the wall and my palms stained the colour of blackcurrant.

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The vine is stubborn. It runs under the apple trunks and climbs into the lower branches, and every leaf is cut bold at the edge, like something drawn with a broad nib and no patience for fuss. Yesterday I found one stem that had wound three times round a fallen windfall and split it clean. I kept the largest piece for you. It is folded in this envelope, pressed flat inside the orange cloth I use for wiping the press, so mind the dye.

Mr Tallis walked past while I was working and said nothing for a long while. Then he told me his mother used to strip the vine off the cider barrels with her bare hands and call it a sort of wedding, because it climbs everything and never asks. I have no idea what he meant. I laughed anyway, and he looked pleased, which he never does.

Come up at the weekend if you can. We pick the late Russets on Saturday and there is a fire by the press at dusk. Bring your sketchbook. I want you to draw the vine properly before I pull the last of it, so that something of it stays, even if it is only in your hand. Your loving sister, Ada.