Black and white pen drawing of a tattoo design showing two plumeria flowers over a band of geometric patterns and curling scrolls, shown on a notebook page beside a black pen.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Plumeria band tattoo design on paper

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

A black ink drawing of a tattoo design on white paper, showing two plumeria flowers with curling scroll shapes above and below them. The band behind the flowers is filled with geometric patterns, including diamonds, fan shapes, zigzags and triangles, all drawn in solid black linework and fill. The design is shown in greyscale on a spiral notebook page with a black pen placed along the bottom edge.

Blackwork Botanical Plumeria Flower Scroll Geometric pattern Band Triangle Zigzag Diamond

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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

Eleven days out of Papeete, the cook ran out of tinned milk and the mate ran out of patience, so I was handed the spare pages at the back of the logbook and told to make the watch bills look like something a captain might sign. Once the swell got up, my hand was the only steady one aboard, and I had a pen that never skipped.

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Tui, the bosun, watched me work the margins without asking any questions. She had a band of ink along her forearm that her mother had put there in a harbour shed, and she said the pattern was counting. Every diamond was a day we had left to run, every fan a squall we had already lived through. She tapped the triangles with a blunt finger. "Zigzags are the sea trying to get in," she said. "Keep them tight."

I drew two plumeria in the middle of the band because the mate had a sweetheart on Huahine and wanted something soft to look at while he swore at the rigging. Five petals each, the stem curling off the edge like a wave turning back on itself. I pressed too hard on the last petal, the nib split, and I left the blot where it fell rather than start the page again.

When we raised the Marquesas light, Tui took the logbook, read the bills, and asked whose flowers they were. I said the ink had decided. She folded the page into her shirt pocket and did not give it back. The pen was still lying across the chart table when we tied up, its cap chewed flat from the long watches.