Small black outlined lotus tattoo with a dotted base on the middle finger of a hand, in fine line botanical style, with turquoise rings on nearby fingers.

Small lotus tattoo on a middle finger

Fine line · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A small lotus flower is drawn in black outline on the middle finger, with pointed petals rising from a curled base decorated with dots and swirls. The lines are thin and even, and the tattoo is filled with the pale skin tone rather than shaded. The plain grey background keeps focus on the finger, with ornate turquoise rings visible at the bottom of the frame.

Fine line Botanical Hand Lotus Flower Dot Swirl

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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 master sends you to the wall at first light, when the plaster is still cool enough to take a line. The ink is ground from soot and gum, and he hands you the reed pen with the finest tip, the one no other apprentice is allowed to touch. Your task is only the outline: the pointed petals rising from the bowl of the flower, the curl at its base, the dots that mark water breaking around it.

Keep reading

The painters follow behind you with their pots of blue, green and ochre. They will fill every space you leave. The overseer, Nakht, tells you the lotus is for the offering table of a widow who lost her son to the river, and that she wants it bright. You nod. But at noon you walk back past the wall and find the flowers still pale, the lines thin and even, the petals unpainted, and you realise you have been waiting for the light to decide.

When the painters arrive you ask them to leave the centres empty. Nakht shouts. You point at the water-dots and say the flower only opens where the line holds it. He argues until the sun clears the courtyard roof and throws the outlines into shadow, and then he goes quiet, because the bare petals catch the last of the day like the inside of a shell.

The wall is still standing, and the widow still comes to sit before it in the late afternoon, when the plaster is warm and the black lines are the only thing holding the glow in place.