Black and grey photograph of a fine line outline of a rose tattoo on the side of a torso, just below the navel, beside a wooden panel.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Outlined rose on a hip in black and grey

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey photograph shows a bare torso with a single-line outline of a rose on the side of the abdomen, close to the hip. The rose is drawn with thin, unshaded black lines and a few open petals, with no fill or shading. The tattoo sits in the lower left of the frame beside a wooden panel, with the navel visible above it.

Fine line Botanical Other Rose Flower Outline

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 fair leaves Maidstone before the dew is off the grass, and Tolley has already sent you ahead with the ticket board under one arm and a tin of drawing pins in your pocket. You are sixteen and have been sweeping sawdust off the Waltzer since Easter. Nobody has ever told you what to do with your hands, so you fold the board in half and watch the lorries grind past the church.

Keep reading

Tolley's pitch is the shooting gallery at the end of the lane, where the prizes are paper roses he cuts from red crepe and pins to a wire. Every evening he draws the flower that goes on the board, a single black line that starts at the bottom petal, curls up through the middle and comes back down without once lifting the pen. 'You don't get to go back over it,' he says. 'Whatever you put down, you live with.'

On the last night you try it on the back of a spare ticket, under the striplight of the generator. The line wobbles at the third petal and snaps. You want to tear the card up. Tolley takes it from you, studies the break for a long time, and says a gap is only where the wind gets in. Then he pins it to the tent pole above the cash tin, where the lamp catches it every time the canvas moves.

Morning comes grey over the motorway. The tent is down, the rides are folded into the trailers, and the ticket is still on the pole, forgotten by everyone but you. You take it down, fold it into your jacket and climb onto the coach to the next town, where the ground will be wet and someone will need a clean card to draw on.