Colour tattoo of two gerbera daisies, one pink and one purple, with a blue swirl behind them, on the calf.

Pink and purple gerbera daisies on a calf

Botanical · Calf · Colour · Photo

Two gerbera daisies are shown in full bloom, one pink and one purple, overlapping diagonally across the leg. Petals are shaded with smooth gradients and defined dark outlines, and the centres are rendered in orange, yellow and green. A blue wash swirls behind the flowers, and the colour is bright and saturated throughout.

Botanical Realism Calf Daisy Flower Petal Swirl

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 lift on Harrow Court has been broken since Tuesday, so you take the stairs with a tin of compost under one arm and a carrier bag of gerbera plants knocking against your knee. Nineteen floors. By the fourth you have stopped counting the graffiti and started counting the flights you can still climb without stopping. Mrs Okafor's flat is on twelve, the one with the blue door, and she has asked you twice now to bring the pink ones up before the frost.

Keep reading

She is not in the kitchen when you arrive. The balcony is where she keeps her pots, lined up against the railing like children waiting for a bus, and the wind coming off the car park makes everything lean. Her husband grew gerberas in Lagos before they came over, she told you once, and every spring she tries to make London grow them too. The pink ones have done well. The purple ones, the cuttings her sister posted in a jiffy bag, have sulked all winter, their outer petals gone the colour of old bruises.

You kneel on the wet concrete and tip the compost into the largest pot. The pink heads turn towards you as if they have been waiting. Mrs Okafor comes out with two mugs and stands behind you, looking down at the city: the crane over the new development, the bus shelter full of schoolkids, the blue wash of the evening coming up over the estate. "Put the purple one at the front," she says. "Let it see the sun first."

You do. Later, when the sky has gone the colour of the flowers, you notice the purple head has lifted a fraction, petals spread wide as if it has decided something. Mrs Okafor touches your sleeve and doesn't say anything, and neither do you. Below, the lights of nineteen floors are coming on one by one, and somewhere down there the lift finally starts to hum.