Enlarged with AI from a smaller original
Orange poppy with black stems on upper back
Realism · Back · Mixed · Photo
A large poppy in red and orange shading sits on the upper back near the shoulder blade, with the petals rendered in soft gradients and visible veining. Below the bloom, thin black stems and scattered black dots trail downward in loose, sketchy strokes that contrast with the painterly flower. The dark background and warm skin tones make the colours stand out against the frame.
Find an artist for thisTake 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 Tomasz, the poppies came up along the rail cutting the week after you left, all at once, as if somebody had shaken them out of a sack. Orange, every one, with a dark throat like a struck match. Mama walked the length of the embankment with a tin bucket and would not let me pick any, because the men at the crossing at Hrubieszow had taken the last of our seed bag in the spring, and she said the flowers were what the land kept back.
Keep reading
I went down the cutting this morning with the good scissors. The stems are thin and black where they have dried, and the heads rattle when you shake them, a sound like gravel in a tin. Each pod wears a little cap, and when the wind comes off the fields the seeds fly out in small black dots and land on the sleepers and in my hair. I counted nineteen on my sleeve before I gave up counting.
I have put twelve of them in an envelope, folded inside this page. The customs officer will open it and see only dust, which is what they will be, and that is how they will get through. Plant them under the north wall where the frost lies late. Mama says they know the way back by themselves, the same way you did.
Write when the lorries are running again. Your sister, Halina.
More like this
From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.