Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a smiling sun with a face inside a crescent moon, above a shaded lotus flower, on skin of the upper leg or arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Sun, crescent moon and lotus tattoo

Dotwork · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A sun with a human face and radiating rays sits inside a crescent moon, with a lotus flower below. Fine outlines are combined with stippled dotwork shading on the petals and moon, with dotted accents and hanging drop details. The tattoo is in black and grey ink and fills most of the frame on a single area of skin.

Dotwork Botanical Other Sun Moon Crescent Face Lotus Ray Dot Drop

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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

Dear Ada, the Marigold came in at four this morning with her nets torn to ribbons and not a single crate of plaice in her hold, and Father stood on the quay looking at her as if she had personally insulted him. Mum has taken the good cloth down from the dresser to make tea for the crew, which tells you how bad it was.

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Your old boat is still moored by the chandlery, and I went to look at her painting before the tide came up. Uncle Pell's sun is still on the wheelhouse, the one with the wobbly face and the rays bent as if he was squinting into a gale. Someone has gone over the dots again with a nail and a pot of soot to stop the paint flaking, and the crescent moon behind it has gone grey at the horns. Under the lot, where he painted the lotus his own mother used to draw on the hatch of her first skiff, a row of tiny drops hangs down, and I counted them twice. Eleven. You always said there were twelve.

Pell says the moon is for the nights the boats come home in, and the sun is for the nights they don't have to. I think he made that up to stop me crying the winter the Ellen went down. Still, I've kept the lamp lit in the window for you every evening since you sailed, so if the Marigold's tide turns kindly, you might see it from the bar.

Write back soon. Tell me whether the southern boats have better luck with the herring, and whether you have found the drops on the mainsail yet, or whether that was just Pell being Pell.

Love, Nell