Black ink line drawing of a rose with leaves and curling vine scrolls on white paper, a flash design suited to a tattoo.

Rose with scrolling vines line drawing

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A rose in full bloom is drawn in bold black outline, with its petals layered around a tightly curled centre. Several pointed leaves sit beneath and beside the bloom, and sweeping vine tendrils with spiral curls extend upwards and down to the right. The linework is uniform and inked with no shading or colour, and the design fills the page with the rose placed slightly off centre.

Traditional Botanical Rose Leaves Vine Scroll Flower

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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

Dear Tomasz, the rose you sent from the glasshouse at Penhallow arrived on the fourth day, pressed flat between two pages of the seed catalogue, and the bloom had gone the colour of weak tea. I have kept it anyway. Mrs Gwynne at the post office says a rose should be given in water, not in paper, but she has never tried to get anything across the Tamar in March.

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The bramble has taken over the north wall since you left. I cut back the long whips on Sunday, the ones that curl up over the gutter like they are looking for a way out, and I stacked them behind the shed. Father would have burned them. I kept one curl in my apron pocket and it has been sticking me all week. Those spirals are stubborn things. Every time you think you have straightened one it springs back into a fist.

The leaves are coming through on the lower canes now, pointed and sharp at the tips, the same shape as the ones you drew on the back of the tide tables. I walked down to the harbour to show Ada, and she laughed and said it was a poor sort of drawing, all outline and no colour. I told her you never needed colour. You only ever needed the line to hold.

I am planting the cutting from the glasshouse in the corner by the water butt on Saturday. If it takes, I will write and tell you. If it doesn't, you will know I tried, and that will have to do for both of us. Come home when the swallows do. Bring the good pencils.