Grey botanical passionflower tattoo with leaves and tendrils on the upper back of a woman in a maroon dress.

Passionflower tattoo across the upper back

Botanical · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A woman is photographed from behind, showing a large passionflower tattoo running down the right side of her upper back. The design includes a bloom with fine radiating petals, several leaves and curling tendrils drawn in detailed linework. The ink is rendered in grey with soft shading, against a softly blurred indoor background.

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 Abbess had forbidden the novices to touch the passionflower, but Sister Ottilie had been counting its tendrils since Lent, and she knew there were thirty-one on the south wall alone. The vine had come over from a merchant's crate in the spring, a cutting wrapped in wet sacking, and the brothers in the herb garden had argued for a week about whether it was a pagan thing or a holy one. The bloom settled it. Its fringe of threads looked like a crown of thorns drawn by someone who had never seen one, and the old gardener, Brother Anselm, said that was reason enough to let it climb.

Keep reading

By August it had reached the bell tower. Ottilie climbed the ladder at dusk with a candle stub in her apron pocket and a pencil from the scriptorium, meaning only to copy the leaves for the herbal. The leaves were three-lobed, with a dark sheen where the light caught them. She drew until the candle guttered, and when she looked down she saw Anselm below with his hands in his sleeves, watching her, not scolding.

"The Abbess will want to know what it is," he said.

"It is a flower that opens once a day," Ottilie said, "and it keeps every petal it has ever had folded inside it."

He was quiet, and then he laughed, a short sound. In the morning she found her drawing pinned to the chapter-house door, with a single line added beneath it in a hand she knew: Let it climb.

More like this

Black and grey botanical tattoo of roses, leaves and trailing vines across a woman's shoulder and upper arm.
Floral shoulder and upper arm tattoo
Woman seen from behind with a fine line script lettering tattoo running down her spine, in grey-black ink, above an open lace wedding dress.
French script quote down the spine
Black and grey botanical tattoo of roses, peonies and trailing vines across a woman's shoulder and upper arm.
Black and grey roses across a shoulder
Colour tattoo of a teal peacock, a hamsa hand and red roses across a woman's upper back, in a neo-traditional style.
Peacock, hamsa and roses across a back
Black and grey botanical tattoo of a rose, leaves and a daisy on the upper arm of a woman wearing a floral dress.
Rose and daisy on an upper arm
Woman seen from behind with a grey and teal bird and pink flowers with green leaves tattooed on her upper back, in a gold sequin dress.
Bird and flowers on upper back
Woman seen from behind with a black lettering tattoo in Gurmukhi script across her upper back, between the shoulder blades.
Gurmukhi script across upper back
Black and grey realistic botanical tattoo of a flower bouquet tied with a ribbon, sitting centre on a woman's upper back.
Black and grey flower bouquet on upper back
Close-up of a woman's neck showing a small fine line black butterfly tattoo with thin antennae, placed on the side of the neck below the ear.
Small butterfly tattoo on the neck
Colour tattoo of a red poppy and orange marigolds with dark green leaves across a woman's upper back and shoulder.
Poppy and marigold shoulder piece
Close view of a small black fine-line script tattoo on a woman's upper back, shown above a pale blue bandeau top and beneath a knitted sweater.
Fine line script word on upper back
Black line tattoo of peonies and leafy stems on the outer thigh, in a botanical style.
Peony stem tattoo on a thigh

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.