Colour photo of a realistic sunflower tattoo on the upper arm, with yellow petals, a brown seed head and green shading behind the bloom.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Realistic sunflower on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A large sunflower is tattooed on the outer upper arm, shown in full bloom with its petals angled across the skin. The petals are rendered with soft shading in yellow and amber, and the seed head has fine stippled detail. Green and red tones sit behind the flower, and the skin around the tattoo is plain with a white sleeve at the edge of the frame.

Realism Botanical Upper arm Sunflower Flower Petal Seed head Leaves

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

Dear Nell,

Keep reading

The sunflowers on the embankment behind the depot came out tonight, all at once, the way they do when nobody is looking. I was sat on the wall at half two with my flask, the sodium lamps buzzing over the goods yard, and I swear the biggest head had turned to follow me along the fence. Grandad always said they face east to greet the sun, but at that hour there was nothing to face except the gate and me.

Their seed heads are the best part. Up close the centre looks like a bit of ploughed field, each seed set in its own tidy row, and the petals go amber at the tips where the lamplight catches them. Somebody has been bringing a radio down there. Some nights you can hear it over the shunting, and tonight a woman was singing something I didn't know, badly and happily, and the flowers seemed to lean into it.

Here is the news, and I'm sorry to put it in a letter. The council have marked the embankment for a car park. The men come Monday with their yellow paint. So I went down with a tin and a spoon and took what seed I could, about two hundred, which Grandad would call greedy. I'm posting you half in an envelope with this. Plant them in the window box in Leeds where the sun sits all afternoon, and when they come up, tell them where they came from.

I'll be on the wall again on Sunday night. If you're awake, look east about four and you'll see me waving with my flask, or the flowers doing it for me.

Love, Mags