Colour tattoo of red peonies and dark green leaves across the side of the ribs, in a traditional botanical style.

Peony cluster on the ribs

Traditional · Ribs · Colour · Photo

A bare side torso with a cluster of three red and pink peony blooms, one small bud and several dark green leaves. The flowers are shaded with soft gradients and defined by dark outlines, and the leaves are rendered with layered green tones. The design spreads diagonally across the ribs against a pale, softly blurred indoor background.

Traditional Botanical Ribs Peony Flower Bud Leaf Rose

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

You have the second tray of rolls out before the kettle has finished sulking, and the flour hangs in the air like something that hasn't decided to fall. Nasrin's note is pinned above the proving cabinet in her square capitals: DON'T LET THE BOTTOM ONES CATCH. Her knife is still in the sink. Beyond the back window the yard is grey, and the peony bush she planted the year the bakery opened is only a knot of dark leaves against the wall.

Keep reading

Then a bud splits. You notice because the room is all cream and brown, and a streak of rose-red has come up through the bush overnight, heavy and loose-petalled, like a fist unclenching. You go out in your socks onto the cold step and cut three blooms with the bread knife, because the secateurs are at the bottom of the bin, and you carry them in dripping onto the bench beside the scales.

By the time the first van rattles into the lane, the flowers are in a jam jar by the till and the loaves have come out gold and blistered. Nasrin arrives at six with her hair wet from the rain, sees the jar, and says nothing for a long moment. Then she takes the smallest bloom, the one still tight at its heart, and tucks it behind the ear of the delivery boy, who has no idea what he's being given.

You take the last loaf from the rack and hold it to the window. The sky is paling over the car park. Whatever you were going to say about the bush, you keep it to yourself and let the light come up slowly over the pavement, where the first customer will see the jar before they see anything else.