Colour sunflower tattoo with a bold dark outline and green leaves, placed between the shoulder blades on the upper back of a woman with her hand raised to her hair.

Sunflower tattoo on upper back

Botanical · Back · Colour · Photo

A large sunflower with layered yellow petals and an orange-brown centre sits on the upper back, with green leaves fanning out beneath it. The bold black outlines and soft shading give it a traditional, illustrative look. The image shows the back of the subject's head and shoulders in a domestic setting, with a small script word on the inner wrist.

Botanical Traditional Back Sunflower Leaves Flower Script Word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The seeds came up on the towpath at Hythe Lock three days after you left, which I know you'll say is impossible, but there they were, a row of green fists pushing through the cinders where the coal boats used to tie up. I'd tipped the last of the packet from the cabin shelf into a biscuit tin and forgotten about it, the way you forget things you meant to do properly. Dad would have laughed. He always said a sunflower was just a clock that had got above itself.

They're taller than the roof now. The big one by the bollard has a head as wide as a dinner plate, petals the colour of the mustard jar Mrs Pryce left on the lock keeper's step, and the middle is a dark brown whorl with a copper glow where the light gets in. Every morning it turns to follow the sun across the water, slow as a barge pulling out of a lock, and I stand on the front deck with my tea and wait for it to finish.

Mick from the north-bound Tilda asked who had planted them. I said nobody had, really, they had just decided to be here. He looked at the leaves, which are broad and green and furred, and said they'd want watering in August. So I'm telling you now, because you're the only one who'd understand why I'm not going to pull them up when the boat moves on. I'm leaving the tin on the bollard with a note for whoever comes next.

Come and see them before the seeds drop. Bring your sketchbook.

Love, Ada