Colourful neo-traditional tattoo of succulents and cacti in a red pot with teal heart motifs, placed on the calf.

Succulents in a heart-patterned pot on a calf

Neo-trad · Calf · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows a red plant pot filled with succulents, cacti and small flowers, with smaller pots decorated with red hearts on teal bands around the design. Bold black outlines define the forms, which are filled with saturated pink, green, teal, orange and purple, with white dot highlights. The design fills the frame of a lower leg, with the pot base shown against a pale background.

Neo-trad Botanical Calf Succulent Cactus Heart Flower Leaves

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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

The last tent came down on a Sunday in October, and by Monday the only thing left on the lot was the plant wagon. Nobody had asked for it. Nobody had asked for much that season. Still, Mrs Okonedo had painted the hearts on those pots herself, red on teal, back when the big top still smelled of sawdust and money.

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I kept the succulents alive the way you'd keep a dog that bites. I watered them from a tin cup on Tuesdays, turned them so the sun reached the cacti, and pinched off the flowers that wanted to sulk. Desmond, the strongman, called them my little hostages. The aerialists swore the orange-striped cushions were stolen from the rigging, which they probably were. Every morning the wagon smelled of wet soil and something faintly sweet.

In November the bank man came with his clipboard and his lanyard, and he looked at the wagon the way you'd look at a tin of old paint. "What's the value of these?" he asked. I told him the value was in the hearts. He wrote "plants, sundry" and left. That evening Desmond, who had not spoken to me in two years over a card game, turned up with a borrowed van and a moving blanket. He said he knew a flat above a chip shop in Hull with a south-facing sill.

We loaded them one at a time, the teal-banded pots wrapped against the cold. When we pulled out, the grass was flattened in the shape of the big top. That night the pots sat in a row on the sill, lit pink and green by the chip shop's neon, and one of the cacti was already leaning towards the glass.