Black and grey dotwork-style dragonfly design with ornate wings, a jewelled body and dotted chains hanging beneath, drawn on a lilac grey background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate dragonfly with dotted chains design

Dotwork · Black and grey · Flash

A detailed line drawing of a dragonfly with outstretched wings, a gem-like oval on its body and a tapering tail. Dotted lines hang beneath the wings like chains, and a scrolled ornamental flourish sits above the head. The drawing uses black linework and dot shading with no colour ink, set against a soft purple and grey gradient.

Dotwork Fine line Dragonfly Wing Dot Chain Ornament Flourish Gem Scroll

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hannah Pell had kept the bench at the back of the shop for thirty years, and she did not care for being hurried by a boy with wet boots. 'Hold that lamp still, Tobias, or the stone will take the blame for your hands.' On the green baize between them lay a dragonfly no longer than a finger joint, its body one oval garnet, its wings silver wire drawn so fine that the lamplight passed through them.

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'Dots take a week,' he said, rubbing his nose. 'Nobody wants dots.'

'Somebody wanted this.' She tapped the sketch pinned inside the lid. A sailor called Matthew Rowe had sat in that chair in March and asked for it to be pinned on his wife's collar the day his ship came round the Foreland. He had not said which year. Hannah had not asked.

So the chains went in, one seed-pearl dot at a time, each hanging from the wing root like drops off a wet line. 'Count them,' she said. 'Every dot is a day the water kept him.' Tobias counted under his breath until the lamp guttered and he lost his place, and she made him start again. The scroll above the head she cut last, a curl of gilt like a wave turning over, and then she stopped, because the setting sat a hair crooked and she would not have it crooked.

On Thursday the bell over the door rang. A woman in a grey coat stood on the step holding a folded letter. She did not speak. Hannah took the brooch from the window and pinned it to the coat without asking, and the woman touched the garnet with one finger, then ran it down the dotted chain, slowly, her lips moving. Tobias waited for the thanks. Hannah only turned back to her bench and swept the filings into the tray.