Pencil sketches of peony clusters with leaves on tracing paper, drawn as designs for a tattoo in a fine line botanical style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Peony cluster tattoo sketches on tracing paper

Botanical · Black and grey · Flash

Two sheets of tracing paper show pencil drawings of peony flower clusters with overlapping petals and leaves. The linework is fine and sketchy, with light shading added to the petal folds and centres. The drawings are monochrome and sit on a desk with glassware and a pen in the background.

Botanical Fine line Peony Flower Leaves Sketch

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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

Dear Margery, you will laugh at me, but Prior Osric has set me to drawing peonies, and not the plain red ones the infirmarer grows for his poultices. These are the pale double ones from the wall beds, the ones Brother Hob says were carried over the sea in a pot by a pilgrim who never came home. I have been at the tracing paper since Lauds, lifting each petal with the point of my pencil until the whole cluster sits on the sheet like a family gathered for a christening.

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The difficulty is the folds. Every petal is a small cup that has decided to open its own way, and the shadow lives in the crease where one curl tucks under another. Osric wants them tight and exact, every vein in place, so that any brother who comes after me can copy the herbal without guessing. I did one sheet that way. It looked like a bill of lading. So on the second sheet I let the lines go loose, let the leaves trail off the edge of the paper, and shaded only the hearts of the flowers, where the light gives out.

Osric came in with his lamp this evening and stood over the desk a long time without speaking. Then he said the second one would go to the guest house and the first one would go in the book. I think he meant it kindly.

I have the spoiled sheet under my pillow. My thumb smudged the lower leaves while the lead was still soft, so there is a grey cloud where one peony should be. I have decided that is the one I will keep. Pray for me, and tell Father I am eating.

Love, Anselm