Colour tattoo of a moth, peonies and anemones covering the upper arm and shoulder, in a painterly neo-traditional style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Moth and peony sleeve on an upper arm

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A large floral sleeve covers the upper arm and shoulder, with peonies, anemones and leaves in muted pinks, lavender and sage green. A brown moth with soft shading sits across the top of the flowers. The linework is bold and dark, with painterly shading that gives the petals depth against a grey tank top and a blurred dark background.

Neo-trad Botanical Upper arm Shoulder Moth Peony Anemone Flower Leaves

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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 step, there's always one more loose board than you think. Sit yourself down, the band are only having their tea, and I have a story for anyone patient enough to listen. You want the moth? Everyone wants the moth. But the moth came up the stairs of the Lantern Ballroom in Carrow Hill in the summer of 1947, riding on the shoulder of a girl called Winifred Shaw, and she had peonies on her mind and nothing else.

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Winifred had grown them behind her mother's allotment shed, great pink heads so heavy they bowed the stems to the wet grass. On the night of the Harvest Dance she pinned one bloom to her collar and went looking for Walter Pike, who had promised to dance with her twice and had not yet managed once. The hall smelled of floor polish and Woodbines. Anemones sat in jam jars along the windowsill, lavender-grey and bruised at the edges, and every lamp in the place drew moths the way a hymn draws the old folk to the front pews.

Walter danced her round twice, then trod on her hem and went red to the ears. She laughed so hard the moth lifted off her sleeve and circled the chandelier, brown as tobacco, its wings dusted with gold from the lights. Walter asked if she wanted to sit down. She said she would rather go up to the balcony and see where the moth went.

They never did catch it. When the band struck up the last waltz, the moth came down low over the floor and settled on the rim of the bandstand, shaking its wings as if it had been the one dancing all night. Then it lifted, slipped out the open window into the sage-coloured dusk, and Winifred, who never did marry Walter, always said it was the only partner who ever left at the right time.