Black and grey realism tattoo of three open roses with shaded petals and leaves on an arm.

Three roses in black and grey realism

Realism · Other · Black and grey · Photo

Three roses in different stages of bloom are arranged diagonally up the limb, with the largest rose at the lower centre and smaller blooms above it. The petals are rendered with soft shading, fine tonal gradients and highlights that give them volume. The tattoo is entirely black and grey, and the dark leaves and shadowed background frame the roses against the skin.

Realism Botanical Other Rose Petal Leaves Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dad always said roses sell best in the rain, because people buy them to prove they remembered something. By half seven the awning over Pell Street was sagging with water, and the bucket by the scales held nothing but three stems left from the Thursday delivery.

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The bud went first, a tight red-black thing Mrs Okonedo wrapped in brown paper for her son's flat. The half-open one went to a man in a cycling cape who didn't look at it, only at the clock over the fishmonger. That left the big one, full blown, its outer petals curled back like the edge of a letter, and I didn't want to sell it.

Dad came back from the van with his hands blue and stood beside me under the drip. 'Keep that one,' he said. 'It won't last till Sunday anyway.' I asked him what he meant, and he shrugged, which was his way of saying he knew more than he'd tell. Then he stripped the leaves from the bottom of the stem and tucked the rose into my coat pocket, where the petals pressed against my ribs like something trying to get warm.

We closed up at four. Rain ran off the tarpaulin in a silver rope, and I stood at the gate counting coins into a tin while the rose darkened at its edges as the light went. I've kept it pressed in the book of recipes ever since, next to his soup recipe, and some evenings I open it and the grey of it looks almost like weather.