Realism
Four leaves, not three. A shamrock has three and it stands for Ireland, so if you ask me for a shamrock that is what you get. Four is a different request altogether. It is luck, and it has nothing to do with the national emblem. Then the client put a ladybird on top of it, which is a second piece of luck from a completely separate superstition, so there are two of them stacked in one small tattoo.
There is not a single black line in the clover. The shape holds up on the difference between the yellow-green at the base of each leaf and the deeper green at the edges, plus a cool shadow where one leaf laps over another. That overlap is what gives it depth. Draw the four leaves flat in a fan and you get a decal.
The ladybird is the one thing in the piece with an outline, and that is deliberate. A hard object on a soft one needs the contrast, otherwise it sinks into the leaf.
One sitting, two and a half hours. I set the size and the angle to fit the gap between the client's existing work rather than crowding it, and warmed the outer edge of the leaves so it sits with what is already around it. Photographed straight after the session. Everything else in the picture is older work and not mine.
