Colour botanical tattoo of a vintage-style flower bouquet with peonies, roses and blue morning glory across a woman's upper arm and shoulder.

Vintage floral bouquet on upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A woman with wavy blonde hair wears a white lace top, with a large floral bouquet tattooed down the outer upper arm and onto the shoulder. The bouquet includes a pink peony, peach roses, orange lilies, blue morning glory and columbine, with soft shading and green leaves in a painterly, antique botanical style. The flowers are arranged in a loose diagonal against a plain pale background.

Botanical Upper arm Shoulder Flower Bouquet Peony Rose Lily 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

Dearest Agnes, the colours came out wrong again this morning. The peach in the roses sits too pale against the yellow of the card, so I put my brush down and walked to the glasshouse at Hollins Lane for a second opinion from the flowers themselves. Mr Pell says I am too fussy, but he has never had to match a peony that opened in the night.

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The commission is for Mrs Ashdown, who wants a bouquet painted for her husband's birthday, all the things that grew in her mother's garden at Ely. I have pinned the morning glory at the edge where it climbs away, because it was the one flower she asked for twice. Blue as a bruise at dawn, she said, and by noon gone to paper. I told her paint keeps no hours, and she laughed, though I think she was not joking.

Last Thursday I found a columbine on the windowsill, bent and papery, and I set it beside the brush jar so I could copy its blue before it faded. It was the only thing in the room still growing, and I suppose that is why I kept it. I have put it in the lower corner now, tipping its bells toward the lily, as if one of them had stooped to listen.

When you come at Michaelmas, bring the good ink, and do not tell Mrs Ashdown how long the peony took. The card will be finished by then, and the flowers will be exactly as they were on the sill, which is more than any of us can say for the morning.