Black ink drawing of a symmetrical lotus flower with paisley petals, scrolls and dotted detailing on white paper, shown as a tattoo design with no body placement.

Lotus flower design with paisley detailing

Botanical · Black and grey · Flash

A symmetrical lotus flower drawn in black ink on white paper, with a central teardrop petal flanked by curled outer petals and a row of dots running above and below. The linework is fine and uniform, with stippled edges, hatched lines and spiral scrolls filling the petals. The design is entirely black and white with no shading or colour.

Botanical Lotus Flower Paisley Scroll Dot Mandala

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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

Dear Nan, the lotus pond behind the old vicarage is finally open after the frost, and I have spent three mornings sitting on the wet stone edge with my boots soaking through, drawing what the mud gives back. You would laugh. The gardener, Mr Okafor, caught me at it on Tuesday and asked whether I was doing a survey for the council. I told him I was copying the shape of a flower that refuses to be ordinary, and he said that was what the council wanted too, only with more paperwork.

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The bloom itself is strange. Each petal curls out at the tip like the end of a fern, and the edges are stippled with tiny scallops, as though someone pressed a pen very gently around every rim. In the middle there is a teardrop petal standing straight up, and inside that another smaller one, filled solid black at its root like a wick that has burned down. Above and below the whole thing, a line of dots runs down the page, the way you used to mark the height of my brother against the kitchen door.

I took the drawing to Mrs Dhillon at the shop on Mill Lane, the one who sells the good ink. She turned it over, held it to the window and said the spirals were the hardest part, that you have to let the pen go round three times before you believe it. Then she gave me a fine nib for nothing and said, love, the lotus comes up out of the mud and still stays clean. I have decided that is what I am going to try to do this summer. Your loving granddaughter, Asha.