Black and grey realistic rose with leaves tattooed on a forearm, shown in a black and white photograph.

Rose and leaves on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo of a large rose in bloom with two open flowers, a bud and several leaves wraps across the inner forearm towards the wrist. The linework is bold and defined, with shading and soft tonal gradients that give the petals depth and volume. The black and white photograph is taken against a dark patterned fabric, with the hand and forearm placed in the centre of the frame.

Traditional Botanical Forearm Rose Flower Leaves Bud

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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

Mairi had been budding roses on Hallow Skerry since the spring her father's hands began to shake, and she knew by now that the trick was patience and a sharp knife. You cut a T into the bark of the rootstock, slide the eye of a bud beneath the flap, and bind it with raffia until the two agree to be one plant. Most took. Some sulked for a season and died in the wet.

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The walled garden sat in the lee of the cliffs, where the wind came off the Atlantic in flat grey sheets and salt crusted the glass of the old cold frame. Visitors from the mainland came on the Tuesday boat to buy cuttings for their borders, and they always wanted the big blowsy ones, the open cups that looked as if they'd been painted on linen. Mairi preferred the bud. A closed rose held its promise tight.

One evening in late August, the Tuesday boat was gone and the sea had gone quiet. A crate arrived instead, wrapped in oilcloth, with a note in a hand she didn't know. It read only: for the bloom you've been keeping shut. There was no signature. Inside lay a single rootstock, its bark grey as driftwood, and a knife with a bone handle worn pale by someone else's thumb.

She sat on the wall until the light went, then made the cut. Her hands were steady. By morning the bud had opened, pale at the heart and darkening at the edges, and she left it open for the boat to see.