Seven red-brown henna-style design motifs on a white background, including two peacocks, paisley shapes and lotus forms, shown as a tattoo flash drawing.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Henna-style motif flash sheet

Colour · Flash

The image shows a flash sheet of seven separate ornamental motifs arranged in a loose diamond. The top motif is a pair of peacocks flanking a central teardrop shape, with the other six being paisley-like panels and a lotus-style flower at the bottom. The fine, even linework is filled with intricate dotted and curling detail in a single reddish-brown ink on a plain white background.

Peacock Paisley Lotus Floral Henna Ornament Flash sheet

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

The henna had to be mixed the night before, my aunt Shabnam insisted, or the stain came out weak and orange like tea left too long. So I was crouched by the courtyard tap at midnight, grinding dried leaves into paste with a wooden pestle while the peacocks on the garden wall began their complaining.

Keep reading

Our garden was walled on three sides and open to the canal on the fourth. Grandfather had planted lotus in the square tank by the gate, and every spring the peacock pair came down from the mango trees to inspect the water. The male fanned his tail until it brushed the moss, and the female walked the wall edge as if she held the deed. I had spent a whole summer trying to copy the eyes of those feathers onto a scrap of card, dotting and dotting until my wrist ached.

On the morning of the wedding, Shabnam held out her hands and I began at the wrist. I drew the paisley first, the teardrop with its curled tip, then the lotus petals folding outward from the centre. My line wavered at the peacock's neck. She laughed and said the birds would forgive me, they always did, and that the trick was to breathe out slowly while the cone ran dry.

By evening the paste had dried to the colour of rust, and we left it on through the night as custom asks. In the morning the lotus had opened in the tank, and the male bird stood on the wall with his tail folded, watching the dark lines on her fingers as though he were checking my work. I told him it was good enough. He did not disagree.