Black and grey pen drawing of a raised-trunk elephant sitting on a lotus flower, surrounded by zentangle-style floral patterns, shown as a tattoo design without a body placement.

Elephant on a lotus flower design

Botanical · Black and grey · Flash

A black ink drawing of a young elephant with its trunk raised, perched on an open lotus flower. Surrounding the elephant are dense zentangle-style swirls, paisley-like petals and leaves, with fine hatching and stippled shading on the animal's body. The image is shown on a plain white background with the design centred and filling the frame.

Botanical Elephant Lotus Floral Leaves Mandala Swirl

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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

Stir it slow, Tomasz, or the porridge catches and you'll be scraping black off the pan till Sunday. There. Now sit down on that flour sack, because I am not telling this twice while the bread proves.

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It was the third night out from Valparaíso, and the sea had gone flat as a chopping board. I was up at four with the ovens still cold, and I heard a sound like a brass horn played by someone who had never seen a horn. When I came up the companionway, there was a lotus floating in the scuppers, white as a boiled egg, and sitting on it, bold as a bishop, was a young elephant no bigger than a pony. Its trunk was raised high, curled at the tip, as if it were testing the wind for bread.

Its skin was grey and hatched all over with fine lines, the way an old engraving goes when the printer has been careless with his ink. Around it the sea had grown lace. Swirls and curls rose off the water like steam off a cooling pipe, and every one had a little pattern inside it, dots and crescents, paisley leaves, tiny stars pricked in with a needle.

The captain's wife came down at six to see what the noise was. She took one look, crossed herself, and asked it politely to move off her good tablecloth. The elephant did. It stepped down onto the boards, leaving the lotus to fold shut behind it like a shutter, walked straight to the bread under its cloth, and had three loaves before anyone could stop it. Then it trumpeted once, sweet as a tuning fork, and went back over the side.

Next morning the lotus was lying in the flour tin. I have kept it there ever since. Now eat your porridge.