Black ink flash sheets of roses, daffodils, lotus and a mountain design set inside solid black triangles and circles, shown on white paper beside fresh flowers.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Botanical flash in triangles and circles

Botanical · Black and grey · Flash

Two sheets of hand-drawn tattoo flash show roses, a daffodil, a lotus, a peony-style bloom, a mountain and a wave, each framed in a solid black triangle or circle. The flowers are drawn with fine, dense linework and stippled shading, while the mountain and wave use simple parallel lines. The design is entirely black ink on white paper, with a few pale flowers placed at the top left and top right edges of the frame.

Botanical Blackwork Geometric Rose Daffodil Lotus Peony Flower Mountain Wave Triangle Circle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The lilac finally came out on the north side of the wall, so I've cut a bunch and put it in the jug beside Gran's ink bottle, which is nearly dry. I've been going through her drawer since the boat came in on Tuesday. Everything is flowers, sheet after sheet, and every one sits inside a black shape. Roses slotted into triangles as if they might blow away otherwise. Daffodils in a diamond. A lotus in a circle so tight the petals have to fold to fit.

I assumed she'd been bored in the winter dark, but the dates tell another story. Most are from the year you left. She drew the mountain from a postcard Mr Affleck pinned to the shop wall, and the wave from the bay below the chapel, the one with the fishing crates stacked on the slip. She never got further than Skerra in her life, yet the far mountain and the near sea share a single sheet, like neighbours who finally agreed on a fence.

I took the best sheet down to the harbour this morning to show Ruth at the post office. She held it up against the grey water and said Gran had been trying to fit the whole world into a space you could cover with one hand. Then she asked whether I was keeping them or selling them to the man from the mainland who collects old flash.

I haven't decided. I've put the daffodil sheet in the envelope with this letter, so keep it flat and dry. The mountain can wait until you come home.

Love, Nell