Black ink design of a French bulldog's head in dotwork shading, framed by a leafy wreath and flowers, drawn on white paper with a fineliner pen beside it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

French bulldog with floral wreath

Dotwork · Black and grey · Flash

A French bulldog's head in profile-front view, with large upright ears and wrinkled brow, sits inside an open wreath of small leaves and layered flowers. The dog is built from stippled dots and fine hatching for shading, while the leaves and petals use clean outlines. The drawing is in black ink only on white paper, with a black fineliner pen lying across the upper left corner.

Dotwork Botanical Dog Wreath Leaves Flower Floral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marion,

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The dog came back on Tuesday, wet to the ears, with a sprig of hawthorn caught in his collar as if someone had dressed him for a wedding. Mr Ashdown swears Rollo was gone three days, but I saw him trotting up Cragg Lane on the Thursday before, and he looked nothing like a stray. He looked like a dog with an appointment.

I've been drawing him since, which you'll think is daft. Every dot takes an age. Mr Ashdown lent me his black fineliner, the one with the tiny nib, and I sat on the back step stippling his face one speck at a time, until the wrinkles above his eyes looked like a map of the moor. The ears took two evenings. You can't rush the ears on a Frenchie. They're the whole argument.

Then the flowers. I wanted a wreath round him the way Mother hung one on the door at Christmas, only with our own things in it: the little leaves off the rowan by the chapel, and the pink campion from the wall at the top of the pass, drawn in clean outlines so they'd look pressed. I never did get the wreath to close. I left a gap at the bottom where the ink ran dry.

Ashdown says it's the finest portrait of Rollo anyone's made, and that the gap is where he'll be going next. I told him that was nonsense. Still, I've left it open.

Love, Ada