Black line drawing of a geometric mandala with lotus petals, with smaller ornamental motifs above and below, shown on a white sheet beside a ruler.

Mandala and lotus ornament design

Geometric · Black and grey · Flash

A black line drawing on a white sheet shows a central circular mandala with layered petals, a ringed inner rosette and a dotted centre. Smaller filigree ornaments sit above and below it, ending in a teardrop shape at the base. The linework is clean and even, with no shading, and the design is centred on a plain background.

Geometric Mandala Lotus Ornament Teardrop Filigree Rosette

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nobody had seen Ruth Ackroyd since the summer they left Hollins Primary, so when the invitations went out for the reunion nobody expected an answer. Then a card came back to the hall with a single ring drawn in biro around the date, and beneath it a circle of petals, drawn so carefully it looked printed.

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The hall on Calder Street smelled of floor polish and urn tea. Dennis Marsh brought his brother's old slide projector and showed photographs of the school pond, where the class had once been told a lotus would open if you were patient enough. Nothing had opened. Ruth had kept a jar of that pond water on her windowsill for a year to prove it could, and the teacher had said it was a lovely idea and asked her to stop bringing the jar in.

Ruth came in late, carrying a flat tin under one arm. Inside were paper rosettes, each with a ringed centre and a small dark dot at the heart, and a single drop shape hanging from the base of every one. She set them out on the trestle tables without speaking. When Dennis asked what they were for, she said the pond was never the point. You started at the centre and drew outward, and the petals came when you stopped insisting on them.

They folded their own that night, badly at first, then better. When the caretaker switched off the lights, the paper mandalas kept a little of the window glow on the tables, each with its small drop at the bottom, like the last of the water running from a tap that had been left on by someone who meant to come back.