Black ink drawing of a crescent moon filled with dotwork patterns and a lotus, with hanging chains, beads and diamond pendants, drawn on white paper.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Crescent moon with lotus and hanging chains

Dotwork · Black and grey · Flash

A crescent moon design drawn in black ink on white paper, with a lotus flower and ornamental patterns across its inner curve. Fine dotwork shading fills the moon's surface, while strings of beads and chains with diamond-shaped pendants hang from its lower edge and a small star sits at the upper tip. The design is shown centred on the page with a hand partly visible at the left edge.

Dotwork Geometric Moon Crescent Lotus Chain Bead Star Diamond Mandala Ornament

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the moon piece went out on Thursday, wrapped in the tissue you sent me from Whitby, and I have not stopped thinking about the man who came to collect it. He stood in the doorway with his cap in both hands and asked whether the lotus could be cut a little deeper, so it would catch the lamp when he hangs it on the hallstand.

Keep reading

I told him the crescent was raised from a single disc of nickel silver, the way Father taught us, and that every dot in the shading is one tap of the punch. There are nine hundred and twelve of them along the curve. I counted while the kettle boiled and lost my place twice, and he didn't mind waiting. He just watched my hands, the way you watch a clock you already know is right.

The chains were the fiddly part. The beads hang on links no thicker than a hair, and the three diamond drops had to balance or the whole thing would sit crooked against the wall. He asked me to leave the small star at the tip loose on its pin so it would turn when someone brushed past. I did, though Father would have sighed at me for it.

Last night I found the original drawing folded in my apron pocket, with a thumbprint in the ink at the bottom corner that must be his. I've pinned it above the bench, where the window light falls at dusk and the chains throw their shadows across the paper. Come up at the weekend. Bring the good file, and we'll see whether that star still turns.