Black and grey shaded rose tattoo on a forearm, next to a hand holding a white travel mug printed with the words There's a chance this is wine.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Rose tattoo on forearm beside a travel mug

Botanical · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A hand holding a white travel mug with a black lid, printed with the words "THERE'S A CHANCE THIS IS WINE." The wrist and lower forearm show a black and grey rose with shaded petals and leaves. The background is ripped blue denim on a knee, and the composition is close and slightly angled.

Botanical Forearm Rose Slogan Denim Nail polish Hand 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

Nobody on the Harwich to Hook run believed the cutting would survive the crossing, least of all Dougie, the chief steward, who kept eyeing it over his clipboard as if it might lodge a complaint. It lived in a jam jar on the windowsill of the purser's office, wrapped in a tea towel at night, and every morning I checked its leaves like a nurse with a bed chart.

Keep reading

My grandfather had grown the rose behind the chapel at Dunwich, a bloom so dark in the shade it looked printed rather than grown, its petals shaded at the edges like pencil smudged by a thumb. When the council put a car park over the garden he dug up what he could and gave me a cutting in a sandwich bag, saying a rose only needs something to hold on to. Then came the Felixstowe Horticultural Show, a marquee that smelt of wet grass, and a judge called Mrs Ferrier with a magnifying glass on a cord.

The man to beat was Gordon Lusk, who had taken the trophy eleven years running with hybrid teas the colour of bruised plums. On judging morning I found his flask abandoned on the trestle table beside my stand, the cup stained with something that smelt suspiciously like Merlot. Mrs Ferrier sniffed it, sighed, and said nothing. She walked straight past Lusk's blooms and stopped in front of mine.

Back aboard, the jam jar was back on the sill, and Dougie raised his travel mug to the glass. "Pure tea," he said, tapping the lid. "Probably." I took the rosette off my coat and put it beside the jar, where the light caught the dark petals and the ribbon turned gold, and for once I didn't ask what was in the mug.