This piece was designed as a tattoo style illustration for my character Alastair’s boyfriend, Oliver. It is made up of several different flowers surrounding a shield, and I used flower language to choose with ones to use, as the tattoo is meant to be an homage to Alastair himself. The shield represents Alastair, as his name means “protector of man”, and a shield is itself a symbol of protection. The flowers all have a variety of meanings related to love and faithfulness, affection, and marriage. Honeysuckle, pink camellia, red roses, bluebells, red salvia, ivy, myrtle, and heliotrope form the background of the shield, surrounding and overlapping it. This gave me practice with drawing organic forms and understanding the layering of flower petals and the way the different shapes work.