Close-up of a small black fine line lotus flower tattoo on the inner wrist of a woman whose hand rests against her chin.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small lotus outline on the wrist

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small outlined lotus flower sits on the inner wrist, with five simple petals drawn in a single black line. The linework is clean and even with no shading, and the tattoo is set against plain skin. The frame is tightly cropped around the hand, chin and lips, with soft daylight and a blurred background.

Fine line Botanical Forearm Lotus Flower

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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

The lamplighter's boy was told not to cross the Saltwater Canal after the bells, so he crossed it at the bells, because his mother had been coughing since Michaelmas and the apothecary on Tanner Row said the only cure left in the city grew on Ferryman Penhale's pond. Nobody had ever seen Penhale sleep. The boy found him sitting on an upturned punt at the water's edge, a lantern hanging from a hook beside him, and asked for the flower in the plainest words he had.

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Penhale did not laugh. He said the lotus opened only when the moon lay flat on the water, and that it kept its petals shut against anyone who came for it in daylight or in fear. 'Take one,' he said, 'and draw what you take on your own skin, so the pond knows whose debt it is. Five petals, one line, no shading. The pond has no patience for shading.' The boy had no ink, so he found a fishbone on the bank and held his wrist ready.

The pond was black and still. When the moon touched it the lotus unfolded, one petal, then another, and the boy counted them out loud until the fifth stood open and the stem bent toward his hand. He broke it at the root, pricked the inside of his wrist, and drew five petals in a single line, not lifting the bone until the last curve closed.

He ran the length of Tanner Row with the flower wrapped in his shirt. By the time he reached the door the petals were closing, and his mother was sitting up with her hand out for it. The fever broke before the church clock struck five. The line stayed on the boy's wrist for the rest of his life, and he never once washed it off, because the pond had been paid in full and a debt like that is kept in the skin.