Full colour realism floral sleeve on an upper arm and shoulder, showing a red rose, daisies, pansies, a hibiscus and a blue butterfly.

Realistic floral sleeve on upper arm and shoulder

Realism · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A full sleeve covering the upper arm and shoulder, with a large red rose at the centre surrounded by white daisies with yellow centres. Above them sit purple and yellow pansies, a pink hibiscus, a large yellow flower, a blue butterfly and a hummingbird, set against soft washed pink and green shading. The work uses smooth, detailed shading and vivid colour throughout, with the background blending into the skin at the edges.

Realism Botanical Upper arm Shoulder Rose Daisy Pansy Hibiscus Flower Butterfly Hummingbird Sleeve

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nobody on Shingle Quay believed me when I said the hummingbird came off the Lisbon boat, tangled in a crate of hibiscus cuttings, so by the second week of June I had stopped saying it and started leaving the nursery door open instead. Dad would have shut it. He shut everything that summer: the greenhouse vents, the till drawer, his own mouth whenever the harbour master came round about the rent.

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The bird ignored the sugar water I set out and went straight for the red rose standing in the bucket by the counter, the one Mr Pryce had ordered for his wife's anniversary and never collected. It hung there with its wings a blur, beak buried in the bloom, while the bell over the door rang and rang with customers who had come for daisies and left with only a story. I did not chase it. Ships don't come back for their cargo, I told myself, and I was not sure which of us I meant.

On the Sunday I carried the bucket down to the slipway at low tide. The daisies had gone soft at the edges and the pansies had folded their faces shut as if they were sulking. The hummingbird came with me, dropping from the eaves in a green flash, and settled on the rim of the bucket as though it had paid for the seat.

I tipped the bucket over the wet stones and stepped back. The bird rose once, looked at me with its long black needle of a beak, and went out over the water, past the masts of the Mary Ellen and beyond the breakwater. I stood there until the tide turned and the petals began to drift. Then I picked a daisy off the stones, pressed it flat against my palm, and walked back up the hill to open the shop.