Black line drawing of a botanical tattoo design showing a large lotus flower with three orchids trailing down the page, drawn on grey paper with no body placement shown.

Lotus and orchid tattoo design on paper

Botanical · Black and grey · Flash

A black outline drawing of a large lotus bloom at the top, with stamens visible at its centre, and three cymbidium-style orchids descending diagonally beneath it. The linework is even and medium weight, with small shaded details in the orchid centres and no colour. The design is placed on a grey sheet, with the flower filling the upper half and the orchids forming a curve towards the lower left.

Botanical Lotus Orchid Flower Stamen

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

You are piping the last of the sugar work when the oven timer goes off in the back, and the window is still black as ink. Your hands know the lotus before your head does: five rounds of petal, each pulled from the nozzle in one breath, pale and faintly translucent against the foil. Mrs Okafor's order is for half past seven, a christening cake for her grandson, and she wanted something that looked like it had floated up from a pond.

Keep reading

Flour dust settles on the sill while the radio mutters about the bridge closure. The orchids come next, three of them, dropping down the side of the tier on a diagonal the way the old pastry chef taught you: follow the weight, let the flowers hang where the cake wants to sag. You pick out the lip of each one with a toothpick, a dab of violet, then a dot of gold in the throat. Your nan's rule was that if something looks like it could fall off, it should look like it wants to.

By quarter to six the first van pulls up outside, headlights sweeping across the shutter. Bev from the shop next door bangs on the glass for her morning rolls, and you wave her off with a sticky knuckle. The cake sits cooling on the rack, the lotus high and open, the orchids trailing down the cream like a conversation that refuses to end.

When Mrs Okafor comes in at seven she says nothing for a while. She touches the lowest orchid with one finger, checking whether it is real, then laughs and asks if you have been up all night. You tell her the truth: you have been up since three, watching the car park for the first grey light so you know what colour to make the petals. The sky turns the shade of wet paper. You hand her the box, and the light lands on those gold dots as though they were always meant to catch it.