Black and grey realism sunflower tattoo with shaded petals and a dark centre, sitting on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Shaded sunflower on an upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large sunflower fills the frame, with a shaded central disc surrounded by layered, curling petals. The linework is soft and the shading builds gradual tonal contrast from pale grey highlights to deep black. The tattoo is in black and grey only, shown on a curved section of skin against a dark vignetted background.

Realism Botanical Upper arm Sunflower Flower Petal

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 lot, and mind the cider. You want the tale of Hallowmere, the kingdom that was never on any map, where the sun was a gold coin the king kept in a box. Every morning the box was opened, and every morning the flowers in the high fields turned their great faces to watch it come out, because the sunflowers of Hallowmere were honest, and honest things always turn toward what they love.

Keep reading

Now the king had a steward called Orla Vane, who kept the granary keys and was not honest at all. She had made a bargain with the Hollow Prince, who lived beneath the western hills and envied anything that looked upward. For a whole season she let the rain be withheld from the fields, and the petals curled in on themselves like burnt paper, and the king wept and never noticed the key she kept tucked in her stocking.

But a sunflower keeps a memory in its heart, and the heart of the largest flower in the high field was a dark round disc, dense as a winter pond. Each night that flower held the last of the light, turning slowly after the sun had gone under the hill, and it kept the warmth in hard grey seeds, the way a grudge keeps its shape. On the thirtieth night Orla came up the field with her lantern. The great flower turned its face to her, just once, and the whole field followed, every head swinging round like a congregation.

Orla dropped the lantern. The Hollow Prince never collected his fee. If you walk up to the high field now, you will see the seeds still turning toward the place where she stood, and nobody in Hallowmere has ever thought to tell them to stop.