Black line drawing of an ornamental butterfly design with swirling filigree wings and dotted detailing, shown on a white background.

Ornamental butterfly tattoo design

Dotwork · Black and grey · Flash

A symmetrical butterfly design drawn in black ink on white paper, with curling scrollwork forming the wings and a solid oval marking the body. Stippled dots and spiral swirls fill the wings, and the lower wings and tail are finished with flowing tendril lines. The linework is bold and even, and the composition is centred with no colour or shading.

Dotwork Butterfly Swirl Scrollwork Dot Filigree Ornamental Insect

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The oven had been ticking for twenty minutes before Dorota let herself look at the clock, and it said ten to five, which meant the bread would not wait while she finished the cake. She slid the last tray of rolls onto the cooling rack anyway, pressed one floury palm flat against the steel, and went back to the parchment where the butterfly sat drying under the strip light.

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She had drawn it three times on the back of a delivery docket before she trusted her wrist. Two scrolls curled up from the body for each wing, then the smaller spirals tucked inside them like shells, then the dots, which she laid down with the tip of a cocktail stick dipped in black gel, each one no bigger than a lentil. The order had come in from a man called Tomasz Wilk, who wanted the same butterfly his grandmother had sketched on a bus ticket in 1962, and who had sat at the counter for an hour arguing about the tail until Dorota gave in and let the tendrils run long.

The lower wings were the hardest. The icing wanted to slump, and she had to keep stopping to breathe on it, lift the tip, and start the curve again from the body outwards. Her hands knew the work better than she did, so she let her mind drift to the Humber, where the first ferry would be leaving the dock in the dark.

When the grey came up behind the blinds, the wings had set hard and clean. She lifted the parchment by its corners and carried it to the fridge, and the only thing still moving in the shop was the steam curling off the loaves.