Flower Tattoos

I’ve had a lot of people approach me for floral tattoos prefacing their request with, “You probably won’t want to do this but…” As if my ability to craft a finely tuned cartoon lizard somehow prevents me from tattooing a pretty lil delicate flower. Bullshit. I will tattoo THE FUCK out of a lavender pansy.

“Why flowers?” he asked, requiring a subheading for SEO purposes.

People get flower tattoos for as many reasons as there are flowers. A rose symbolizes love. A lotus means serenity. Maybe you just like them because they’re pretty, or maybe you’re looking for a birth flower to honour your ankle-biting crotch goblins. Flowers can be soft, bold, moody, symbolic, or just aesthetically pleasing for no deeper reason than “plants are neat.”

It’s hard to go wrong with a floral tattoo (unless you get a little inadvertent Georgia O’Keeffe influence in there). In fact, it might be the most commonly tattooed design in tattooing. Polynesian and Japanese cultures have incorporated flowers into their motifs since forever, and for good reason. They’re uncontentious. they’re safe. The kind of tattoo your grandma might actually be proud of. All the more hilarious when you pair them with a fire-breathing Rat Fink. Which I highly recommend.

Flowers also work in every style. You can go bold and graphic, soft and painterly, bright as hell, or black and grey if you’re feeling solemn. They fit anywhere on the body, and they’re one of the few subjects that can be both delicate and badass depending on how we approach them. That level of flexibility makes them fun to tattoo, even if people assume I’m too “cartoony” to do something pretty.

So here it is—proof that I have, in fact, tattooed flowers from time to time throughout my career. And if that doesn’t impress you, maybe these cartoon lizards will. Or maybe some realism?