Woman in a black bikini with a black and grey rose sleeve on her left upper arm and forearm, and a geometric tattoo on her right upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Rose sleeve and geometric tattoos on arms

Botanical · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph is cropped below the neck, so no face is visible. A large black and grey rose sleeve runs from the shoulder down the left arm, with shaded petals and leaves, and a geometric design appears on the right upper arm. The image is taken outdoors in bright sunlight, with a palm, a stone wall and a cigarette in the lower left.

Botanical Geometric Upper arm Forearm Rose Floral Geometric pattern Sleeve

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, you, where the wind can't get at your ears. My grandmother's grandmother used to say the stone walls on this island were built by men who owed the sea money, and they paid it back one stone at a time. Along the south wall there was a rose called Ferrin's Grey, grown from a cutting carried over in a fish crate. It bloomed only in the dark months, when the sun had gone off the island and left nothing but shadow to live in.

Keep reading

Ferrin had no colour in his palette, only ash and soot from the kiln, and he would shade each petal until it looked wet. Nobody on the island could say what the rose was for. The women said it was too sad to give at weddings. The men said it kept the fog from coming in. Ferrin only said he was tired of pretending the sea had any colours of its own.

One February a boy from the far headland came to the wall with a drawing of a star cut into a square, the lines running out to the edge like rope on a capstan. He wanted the rose and the star on the same arm, so the sea would know where to find him. Ferrin took the ink, pricked the skin, and it took three nights. When the boy walked home the rose had gone quiet in the dark, and the star turned slowly on his skin like a compass finding north.

That's the whole of it. The rose still blooms on the south wall, and if you go out there in winter you'll see the grey of it, and you'll see the stars turning, and you'll know the sea keeps its word.