Japanese maple leaves, Peonies - Can I mix?

[Albert]

Hi everyone. I'm new. I have some peonies on my stomach with a dragon head on my chest. The body will wrap to my arm along with a koi and some flowers/leaves of some sort. I was wondering if I can mix maple leaves with peonies? I searched and I read cherry blossoms and maple leaves can't go together because of the different seasons. Anybody know if I can mix?

[Black is the new Black]

You can do whatever you want. You are getting a Japanese "style" tattoo and not a "real traditional" Japanese tattoo so don't feel any pressure from anyone else to follow some form of rules.

Unless you are flying to Japan and having a master do it (or in some peoples opinions having Horitaka in San Jose do it) via machine free hand needling you aren't going to have a "traditional" tattoo so you should feel completely comfortable getting whatever you want.

My understanding is that by deciding the specific details of what you want you are already widely off track from traditional Japanese tattooing, that instead you would only be describing the general themes with the artist and leaving all the decisions around details, placement, etc. up to him.

For your specific question - it will just strike anybody who's lived in Japan for a significant time as an odd combination because they wouldn't see maple leaves and cherry blossoms falling together. However even in Japan artists will mix the themes such as here.

You can check out all sorts of Koi tattoos, good ones, bad ones, little ones, big ones, traditional, and totally new school here.

[M.]

nope, pretty much what GD said, what you can do is do it on different parts of your body , like my right arms got cherry blossoms and my lefts got maple leaves , but the 2 together, dont go together if you want to stick to tradition.

[anthonyc]

i wouldnt mix
its like having a snowman on a beach

[TS]

I've mixed (wasn't even thinking about this at the time various times it's happened) but as I've also said, in my real life I'm impossibly expected to be in 2-3 places at once, so why not. Also, the Japanese Maple in my garden has leaves, albeit green, when peonies are in season here.

That said, my next feat will be to convince my (new) artist to integrate all my work and tell the story of all the elements and seasons in one sweeping image.

[Albert]

I understand. Thank you everyone for your input. I might do it because the peonies are on the stomach and the maple leaves will be on the arm. I have a bonsai on the ribs already and will have blossoms on the back. I'm just all over the seasons here. Thanks everyone.