Black fine line outline of a peony with leaves and a small sprig on the inner forearm, shown in black and grey ink.

Peony outline on the inner forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A single peony bloom with two leaves and a small sprig of foliage is drawn in thin black outline on the inner forearm. The linework is even and fine, with no shading or fill, so the petals are defined only by their edges. The skin is pale and the ink is black, set against a soft-focus dark green background and a dark sleeve.

Fine line Botanical Forearm Peony Flower Leaves Sprig Foliage

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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 Nell, the peonies at the lock cottage came out all at once this year, the week after you left, as if they had been waiting for you to go so they could show off. I cut the best of them for the cabin table and the bargeman's wife at Hythe sent word she wanted a bloom for her funeral hat, which I will not be giving her, because I have seen how she treats her lad.

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The Marigold is sitting low in the cut below Sandy Mill. The water has gone brown and quick since the rain, and I have had to tie off twice at the willows, once to let a fishing punt through and once because I could not see the mark on the post for the glare. Your father would have laughed at me for it. He always said a barge knows the river better than the bargee does, and then he would go and prove it by running her onto the same bar every spring.

I found your drawing book under the bunk, the one with the rose you tried to draw from the lock gate. You had the petals all wrong, too tight at the centre, but you had the leaves right, the way the vein runs down the side like a bent finger. I have pinned it up by the stove. Come home at Michaelmas if you can, and bring whatever you have learned about shading, because I could do with someone to tell me where the light is coming from.

The kettle is on. The sprig of rosemary you left on the sill is still green. Write soon, and tell me the truth about the fellow in Ely, not the version you put in the last letter.

Your mother, Ada