Neo-traditional colour tattoo of a purple rose with green leaves and a gold crown and sceptre on the ankle and top of a foot.

Purple rose and crown on a foot

Neo-trad · Ankle · Colour · Photo

A large purple rose with black shading sits above a gold crown set with red gems, a crossed sceptre and green leaves. Bold black outlines define the shapes, with soft grey and black shading around the petals and small cloud-like outlines filling the gaps. The design fills the ankle and top of the foot, with the toes visible at the bottom of the frame.

Neo-trad Botanical Ankle Rose Crown Leaves Gem Cloud Letter

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

Sit closer, the lamp is nearly out and the tide won't wait for anyone's comfort. My grandmother's cousin Marta kept a rose that bloomed purple in the dark, and she swore it was the only honest thing in the Gdansk harbour that winter. The crown came later, painted on by a sailor called Piet who owed her money and paid it in ink. He said a queen's crown belonged on whoever carried the most weight, and Marta laughed at him, because she carried the boats up the slipway every morning on her own two shoulders.

Keep reading

The sceptre was the trouble. Piet drew it crossed behind the crown like a magistrate's stick, and the men in the Silver Gull took it for a joke until the customs officer came down the quay asking for the woman who ran the rope shed. He had a list of names and her name was on it twice. Marta walked out to meet him with grease on her hands and the sleeves of her coat rolled to the elbow, and she asked him what he thought a crown was for. He had no answer, so she gave him one. A crown was a thing you carried so nobody else had to.

He went back up the hill without his list. The rope shed stayed open and the rose kept its colour long after the paint should have faded. On still evenings, if you stood where the light falls from the lamp at the harbour mouth, you could just make out the gems catching red, like something waiting to be claimed. Marta never claimed anything, which is why the rope shed is still hers.