Black and grey fine line tattoo of a small sprig with three five-petalled flowers and leaves on the upper arm.

Small flower sprig on an upper arm

Fine line · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A small sprig of three five-petalled flowers sits on a stem with two leaves and a bud, drawn in thin, even black linework. The tattoo is shown in a close, side-on photograph of the upper arm, with a grey sleeve at the left edge against a plain white background. The design is simple and open, with no shading, and uses only black ink on pale skin.

Fine line Botanical Upper arm Flower Sprig Stem Leaves Bud

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

You go down to the stream below the fort before the bread is issued, because the small blue-eyed flowers only grow where the water slows and the shade stays cold. Nobody else is awake except a mule and the sentry who pretends not to see you. Your brother's last tablet, scratched in a clerk's careful hand, asked for them and nothing else, which is strange, because Cato has never asked anyone for anything in his life.

Keep reading

You choose three open flowers, one bud still shut tight like a fist, and two leaves that the snails have not found. You wrap the stems in damp moss and lay them in a box lined with wax-soaked linen. Centurion Verus's wife watches from her doorway and asks what you are carrying. Herbs for the sick, you tell her, and she nods as though she has heard that lie before and does not mind it.

The courier leaves at first light with your letter scratched into a thin wooden leaf: Tell him the stream is still there, and the water is still cold, and I am still counting the days. The box goes into his satchel beside the oil flask and the spare sandals. The road to the Wall is long, and the moss will dry out long before the end of it.

Six weeks later a tablet comes back with the supply carts. The moss has crumbled to grit, but the flowers have pressed flat between the wax and the wood, and the closed bud has opened in the dark of the satchel. Beside their faint impression Cato has scratched a single line: They opened on the road. Is the water still cold?