Three views of a man's arm with a full sleeve tattoo of a seated Buddha, lotus flowers and grass in watercolour-style colour washes and black ink, shown on the upper arm and forearm.

Seated Buddha and lotus full sleeve

Dotwork · Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

A seated Buddha with hands resting in his lap sits at the top of the sleeve, drawn in bold black linework with loose shading. Below him, pink and peach lotus flowers, lotus seed heads and tall grass stems fade into splashes of teal, green and orange, with dotted halftone shading around the shoulder. The three photographs show the same sleeve from the front, side and back, with even, soft lighting.

Dotwork Botanical Shoulder Upper arm Forearm Buddha Lotus Grass Ink splatter Watercolour Sleeve

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The fair pulled into Carrowby on Tuesday and the Lotus Pool is finally finished, though not how Mr Fenwick wanted. He paid me to paint a seated Buddha on the back board of the coconut shy, hands folded in his lap, the way the old print in Mum's kitchen had him. I did the outline in black on Monday with the good sable, and he sat there nodding like a man at a funeral. Then the wind got under the canvas and a whole pot of green ran off my palette and across his knees.

I swore, Nell, I'll admit that. I had a rag in one hand and a stiff brush in the other, and Fenwick was already reaching for the whitewash. But the splash had landed right across the shoulder, a spray of teal and orange as though the sky had been dropped from a height, and the lamp caught it. I dabbed the drips into stems and pinked the lotus heads over them until the grass seemed to rise out of the spill.

Fenwick came round Thursday with the lads from the dodgems. Nobody mentioned whitewash. A girl in a green coat asked if the Buddha was sitting in the rain, and her mother said yes, that's exactly what it is.

So it stays. I've left the last drip wet on purpose, just beside the left hand, where a little rain collects on the board every night. Come and see it before we move on to Ashby.

Your loving brother, Tom