Black and grey realism tattoo of a rose with its petals formed from banknotes, shown on a limb with hair and skin visible.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Rose made from banknotes on skin

Realism · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A large rose is drawn with its petals made from folded paper currency, showing printed denominations and engraved detail. The shading is black and grey with soft highlights that give the petals volume and a curled, lifted appearance. The tattoo fills most of the frame against skin with some redness and hair visible at the edges.

Realism Other Rose Banknote Money Dollar bill Petal

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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

The notes came out of the biscuit tin in bundles held with elastic that had gone brittle as pastry, and Nell counted them twice under the bare bulb before she let herself reach for the scissors. Outside, the rain was working along Canal Street in long grey sheets, and the last tram had already clanked past the shuttered chandlers. Her brother had brought the money back from Savannah in a sea-stained kitbag, swearing it was clean, and it was past midnight before she believed him.

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Dessie wanted it changed into sterling by morning, and she wanted something else. She had been folding since supper, tucking one hundred-dollar note over another, rolling the edges until the printed borders curled like the lip of a cup. The first petals came out grubby. The later ones, where she worked the paper with her thumbnail until it lifted, looked almost alive, the green gone grey under the lamp, the engraved scrollwork catching the light like wet ink.

She built the heart from a single note she would not let herself spend, folded so its portrait faced inward and sank into shadow. Around it she layered the rest, outer petals wide and ragged, the numerals spilling across each fold. When she turned the thing over it weighed more than four hundred dollars had any right to, and she understood, pressing the last petal flat with her palm, that she had been making a headstone for the man who had paid for the trip and never come home from it.

Dessie came in smelling of the river and stood a long time without speaking. Then he took the rose, pinned it to the corkboard above the till, and switched off the bulb. In the grey light from the street the paper petals seemed to open a little further, as though they had been waiting for the dark to unfurl.