Black linework tattoo of paisley-style flowers, leaves and swirls covering a shoulder and upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Paisley floral design across the shoulder

Botanical · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A large black-ink tattoo of stylised flowers, leaves, scrolls and paisley-like shapes wraps over the shoulder and upper arm. The lines are even and uniform in weight, with no shading, so the motifs read as flat outlines against the skin. The composition flows from a large central bloom at the top of the shoulder down towards the elbow, with smaller flowers and curling tendrils filling the gaps.

Botanical Shoulder Upper arm Flower Leaf Swirl Paisley Mandala Vine Scroll

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ewes had been brought down off the top field by the time the frost came in, and Gran's kitchen smelled of wet wool and the paraffin heater she refused to replace. I sat at the table with the bedspread across my knees, trying to work out where the pattern began.

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She had stitched it the winter after Grandad died, black thread on cream cotton, flowers the size of saucers and curls that unspooled into leaves and then into more curls. Paisley, she called the teardrops, though she said the word the Scottish way, as if it belonged to a shawl in a glass case. I could find no mistake in it, only a repeat that carried on past the point where you expected it to stop.

Gran came in from the yard stamping, the cold still clinging to her coat. 'You'll not find the start,' she said. 'Nobody does. Pick a flower and follow the line till your eyes give out.' I chose the big bloom in the top corner and followed its scroll down, round a leaf, through a row of dots that became a bird's foot, and out past the edge of the cloth where the line ran on into the table itself.

Outside, the frost had drawn its own pattern on the window, ferns and curls growing up from the bottom corner. By morning it would be gone and the glass would be wet and plain. I kept tracing the black line with my finger until the heater clicked off, and Gran said nothing, which meant she was pleased.