Black and grey geometric cube tattoo with a lotus inside on the left upper arm, beside a black and grey rose sleeve on the right upper arm and forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lotus in a cube and rose sleeve on arms

Geometric · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A woman wearing a white mesh crop top is photographed from the chest down, showing two tattoos on her arms. On the left upper arm, a fine line cube outline encloses a shaded lotus flower, while on the right arm a dense sleeve of shaded roses and foliage runs from the upper arm to the forearm. The work is entirely in black and grey ink against a plain pale background, with the sleeve filling the right edge of the frame.

Geometric Botanical Upper arm Forearm Lotus Cube Flower Rose Sleeve Leaves

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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 Ned, the scaffold crew knocked off at four because the wind came off the Tweed like a blade, so I have the north chapel to myself and a paraffin lantern that smells worse than the pigeons. I've been drawing the rose window again. Half of it is still in the wall, a wheel of petals with the stone gone soft at the edges, and the rest lies in the nettles where the 1890 surveyors left it. Mrs Haldane from the trust wants a full set of measured drawings before the spring frost gets into the mortar, so I measure, and I swear at my own pencil.

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This afternoon I found the cube. It sits at the base of a column that someone must have knocked over and set back the wrong way round, a square block no bigger than a loaf, with a lotus cut into one face. The petals are shallow and tidy, each one a neat little boat, and the whole thing is sunk into a recess so precise I thought at first it was a joint. Only when I brushed the lichen off did I see the carving turns through the corner, as if the flower were looking for a way out of the box. Whoever cut it had a steadier hand than any of us, and a sense of humour too, because the mason's mark on the underside is a tiny fish.

I made a rubbing of it on the back of an old survey sheet, so you'll have to forgive the smudges. I'm posting it with this letter, along with a pressed rose I took from the bramble on the south wall, which is still flowering in November out of pure spite. Keep the kettle on Thursday. I'll be the one with grit in my hair and a cold I can't shake, asking you to hold the other end of the tape.