Colour neo-traditional tattoo of oranges, white blossoms and green leaves across the outer thigh.

Orange fruit and blossom on a thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows two whole oranges with dotted peel texture and a star-shaped calyx, surrounded by white orange blossoms, buds, green leaves and a thin branch. Bold dark outlines define the shapes, with smooth shading on the fruit and petals. Bright orange, blue-white, green and purple tones fill the composition, which is arranged as a loose cluster across the outer thigh.

Neo-trad Botanical Thigh Fruit Flower Leaf Bud Branch

Find an artist for this

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

The orangery at Halsey Court had been shut since the August the glass cracked, and by the time I was sent to clear it the bindweed had got in under the door and up the bricks. Mr Pellow was waiting for me at the far end with a bucket of secateurs and a face like a closed gate. "Three trees," he said. "The rest go to the skip on Monday. Take the ones with fruit on."

Keep reading

The trees were older than either of us. Their trunks had gone grey and twisted, and somewhere in the middle of the row a late flush of blossom hung on among the oranges, so the air was thick and sweet and the fruit looked as if it had been dipped in lamp oil. I cut the first branch and the petals came down on my wrists. Mr Pellow watched me take the second one and said nothing, which from him was almost a blessing.

By four o'clock I had a crate of fruit and two cuttings wrapped in wet newspaper. He stood by the potting bench, turning an orange over in his palm and thumbing the small star-shaped crown at its top as though he were checking a pulse. "My father grafted that one in 1961," he said. "Never let anyone else touch the knife."

We did not talk about the glass or the skip again. He peeled the orange in one long curl and gave me half, and it was so bitter and bright that I had to look away towards the broken panes, where the light came through green. That was the day I understood he had never meant to save the trees. He had only wanted someone to carry them out.