Black ink ornamental lotus flower tattoo with mandala-style detail on the upper back, just below the nape of the neck.

Ornamental lotus flower on the upper back

Botanical · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A fine black ink lotus flower with ornate, mandala-like detailing sits on the upper back, with a small column of dots above and below it. The linework is detailed, with stippled and hatched shading filling the petals and curling tips. The image is in black and grey with no colour ink, and the tattoo is framed by bare skin, a dark strap and a lace garment at the edge of the shot.

Botanical Fine line Back Lotus Flower Mandala Dot Ornament

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

The cutter's shop in Norwich smelled of linseed and warm pear wood, and Ruth had been told twice already that the lotus would not print. Mr Oakes laid the proof on the bench between them and pointed with the handle of his knife. The petals were fine. The centre was grey mud. Every dot she had stippled into the heart of the bloom had soaked into the paper and spread, so the mandala lost its eye and became a smudge.

Keep reading

'You are trying to make them stay,' he said. 'Dots want to be dropped, not placed. Put the point down and lift before the ink knows you were there.' He handed her a bradawl and a tin of the thin indigo he kept for trial sheets. She worked until the lamp was lit, lifting and dropping, until a column of small dark marks ran down the margin beside the flower, one above and one below, like the beads on a string she had seen in his drawer and never asked about.

Forty years of repeats had taught him to draw a flower that could be cut in one piece and turned without losing its shape. Ruth learned the trick of it that week. Each petal curled back on itself at the tip, a little hook of hatching that sat sharp against the open paper, and the stipple never touched the edge. By Friday the sheet hung over the drying rack, and the centre held.

On Monday the first bolt went through the press. Oakes ran a thumb across the cloth, then held it up to the window, where the lotus showed in indigo the whole length of the bolt, dot by dot, a hundred blooms cut from one block. He said nothing. He only pulled the sample off the rack, folded it once, and wrote her initials in the margin where the dots began.