Ornamental lotus flower tattoo in black and grey dotwork shading on the back, with a dotted line running above and below it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate lotus flower on the back

Botanical · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A symmetrical lotus flower with layered petals sits at the centre of the frame, with a dotted line running vertically above and below it. The petals are outlined in fine dark linework, with inner patterns of dots, scrolls and teardrop shapes, and the shading is built from stippled dots. The ink is mostly black and grey, with warm brownish tones in the shading, and the design is centred on the skin of the back.

Botanical Dotwork Back Lotus Flower Mandala Dot Petal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nan Ivy never drew a flower without pricking it out in dots first, so her paper always looked as though it had been rained on from the inside. I learned that the summer I was sent to sit with her in the back of the net loft, where the light came in sideways through salt-grey glass and the whole harbour smelt of tar and wet rope.

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The lotus was her favourite. She drew it for the Sunday chapel cushions and for the lid of the tin where the twine lived, petal inside petal, each one filled with teardrops and small curled scrolls. 'Every dot is a decision,' she said, tapping my wrist with the awl when my hand shook. 'Stipple it slow or it'll look like a sneeze.'

The autumn the boats came in short, the harbourmaster asked her for a chart of the quay wall, and she gave him something else. She pricked a line of holes down a sheet of oiled paper, top to bottom, and said it was the tide. Each spring the water reached a little higher on the steps, and she marked the old stones with the same tiny pinpricks, one for every year, so anyone could read how far the sea had come.

When she died, the loft still smelt of tar. I laid her lotus sheet flat on the bench and set my thumb to the highest dot. Outside, the water was making its slow climb up the steps, and I pricked the next mark exactly where it reached, slowly, the way she taught me.