A realistic purple and blue butterfly tattoo with dark outlines and shaded wings, sitting on a person's shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Purple butterfly tattoo on shoulder

Realism · Shoulder · Colour · Photo

A butterfly with open wings is tattooed on the upper shoulder, shown in a close photograph with the skin lit by strong sunlight on one side. The wings are filled with violet, purple and blue shading, with dark outlines and small pale speckles on the wing edges that give a three-dimensional look. A soft shadow falls beneath the butterfly, and the background is out of focus.

Realism Shoulder Butterfly Wing Shoulder

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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 Mags, the rain has finally stopped over Hadleigh and the whole market square smells of wet tarmac and bruised apples. I went to the glass case outside Pennick's on Tuesday, the one with the Morpho-blue brooch you always pretended not to want, and it was gone. Mr Pennick says a lady from Ipswich bought it for her daughter's wedding. I said nothing, which you will say is unlike me.

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What I did instead was walk down to the river with the bicycle and sit on the wall by the mill. A boy from the garage was there fishing with a jam jar, and he told me the butterflies come off the reeds in July in such numbers that the water looks like it's been dusted with violet. He said it so plainly that I believed him. I have decided to believe a great many things this year.

So here is my news, and you must promise not to tell Mother. I am going to Lowestoft on the first bus, to the photographer's studio above the chemist, where a man called Oddie is said to paint on anything that holds still. I have asked him for a butterfly with its wings open, on the top of my shoulder where a coat strap sits, so that no one at chapel will see it unless I let them. Oddie says the purple must be darker than I think I want. I told him I want it to look like it might lift off in a good wind.

Write back soon and tell me if I am being foolish. I am already fairly sure I am not.

Yours in haste, Eileen