Black and grey ornamental paisley and flower tattoo covering the shoulder and upper arm of a person with their back partly turned to the camera.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Paisley and flower shoulder piece

Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

The photo shows a shoulder and upper arm covered in a large ornamental design of paisley swirls, scrolling curls, dotted circles and a detailed flower with leaves near the elbow. The linework is fine and the shading is mostly solid black fill with light grey tones, giving depth to the petals and leaves. The tattoo wraps over the curve of the shoulder, and the framing is close, with the person's back and a dark top visible around it.

Shoulder Upper arm Paisley Mandala Flower Leaf Swirl Dot

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

Sit closer, the lamps are poor and the guards are bored of us tonight, so they let us stay. You want the shawl story? Then hush, and let the river do the talking for a while.

Keep reading

Zoya the weaver kept her loom above the river in a town of walnut trees. She worked a pattern no one had seen before, a teardrop that curled over on itself like a bent green leaf, and inside every curl she stitched a small flower with seven petals, one for each child she had lost to the winter fever. Her shawls went down the mountain on the backs of mules, and by the time they reached the frontier post at Dun Pass, every merchant wanted one.

The customs officer there was a careful man called Tariq, who unfolded each bundle on his table and counted the curls with a wet finger. He found no smuggled silver, no opium, nothing but wool and a hundred little flowers. Then he reached the last shawl, the one Zoya had woven for her youngest, and he stopped. Tucked into the border of dots was a row of tiny glass beads, spelling out the name of a girl who had not survived the winter.

Tariq did not write a duty that day. He folded the shawl, put it back in the bundle, and tapped his own shoulder where a curl would sit.

So when the guard waves you through tonight, touch your shoulder. Zoya asked for no toll but that, and she was paid in full.