Colour traditional tattoo of a pale teal rose with green leaves inside a dark oval frame with black sunburst rays, on the upper arm of a person in a striped top.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Traditional rose in a sunburst on upper arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A pale teal rose with cream highlights and green leaves sits at the centre of an oval panel outlined in black. Bold black radiating lines surround the design, and red, yellow and green shapes fill the background and base. The solid colour and heavy black outlines are typical of traditional work, and the tattoo fills most of the frame against the upper arm and shoulder.

Traditional Upper arm Rose Leaves Sunburst Oval frame Ray

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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 fanlight over the front door of Marrow House has been cracked since the winter the sea came up the steps, and this morning it is you who has to climb the stepladder to see what the damp has done. Mrs Abney stands below with her arms folded, saying nothing, which is how you know she has been waiting years for someone to look properly.

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Behind the grime, painted onto the back of the glass, is a rose. It is the pale teal of sea glass held up to a window, with cream lifted through the petals as if someone had breathed on wet paint, and two green leaves tucked beneath it like folded hands. Around the oval of it, someone has scratched long black rays with the tip of a nib, dozens of them, fanning out to the frame. You know the hand. Hal Pringle lodged in the back room one summer and painted the pier railings for a few shillings a day. He left in September with his brushes wrapped in a tea towel and never sent for his deposit.

Mrs Abney says the rose was for her husband's boat, the Verity, and that Hal used the last tin of that teal because nothing else on the coast came close. She does not say what happened to the boat. She says only that the light comes through the glass at six every morning and lays the colour across the hall floor, and that she has not had the heart to wash it off.

So you scrape the flakes of old varnish from the edges and leave the rose alone. When the guests come down for breakfast the hall is pooled with teal and the tide is out, and nobody thinks to ask who painted the window.