Black and grey realism tattoo of a lion's head with a flowing mane above two roses on an arm, shown against a black background.

Lion and roses arm sleeve

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A realistic lion's head in profile sits at the top of the arm, with a detailed mane and shaded fur. Two large roses with soft, layered petals follow down the arm beneath it. The work is entirely in black and grey, using smooth gradients and fine highlights against a plain black background.

Realism Upper arm Forearm Lion Mane Rose

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The paint tin had been under the stern deck since Whitsun, and when Uncle Dennis finally prised the lid off, the contents were grey, not the red he'd bought it for. He swore at the chandler in Coventry, then at the tin, then at the mice nesting in the rope locker. I told him grey would do. Roses could be any colour a man could bear to look at.

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We worked the cabin panels through the Hatton flight, the water thick and quiet, and every time a paddle groaned I thought of the lion Grandad carved for the prow. Nobody was allowed to repaint it. Its mane swept back into the wind, and its glass-bead eye watched the towpath as if the towpath owed it money. Dennis said a lion ought to look where it was going. I said it was looking exactly where it was going, which was upstream, against everything.

By the third lock the roses were opening along the panel, petal over petal, shading from pewter to a grey so pale it was nearly the water. A boy on the bank asked if they were smoke. Dennis gave him a sharp look and said roses were the hardest thing in the world to get right without a colour to lie with, so you had to make them out of light instead.

We reached the basin at dusk. Dennis stood back with the brush dripping and admitted the lion had the better face of the two. I didn't argue. The lion had the mane, the set jaw, the look of something that had crossed a great deal of water and meant to cross more. The roses only had the grey, but in the last of the light their petals seemed to lean towards the bow, and I thought, not for the first time, that flowers have always known which way the river runs.