Black and grey flash collage of Totoro-style creatures in ink sketches, with plants, mushrooms, a pair of Chinese characters and an Art Nouveau reclining figure.

Totoro sketches, botanicals and Art Nouveau figures

Japanese · Black and grey · Flash

A greyscale collage of design drawings arranged on one sheet. It includes a Totoro-style creature in many poses, including sitting, under an umbrella, on a mushroom and among flowers, plus a row of small silhouettes showing a sequence of movements. Other panels show an ornate Art Nouveau reclining pair at the top and two Chinese characters framed by decorative scrollwork, with fine ink linework and soft grey wash shading.

Japanese Botanical Totoro Umbrella Mushroom Flower Plant Frog Chinese character Figure Sketch

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ada had been sent to the back of the Waltzer for spare tarpaulins when the rain came sweeping across the field, and she was still holding one above her head when she found the grey creature sitting in the mud beside the generator trailer. It was about the height of a coat stand and entirely unbothered by the weather. Its ears were pointed like the tips of cut ferns, and it regarded her the way the old carousel horses did at feeding time, with patience and a faint suspicion.

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Her grandfather had painted the fair's panels for forty years, and in the drawer of his caravan she had found sketches of this same creature: asleep under a fern, perched on a mushroom, holding an umbrella far too big for it. The drawings were soft ink washes that bled at the edges when damp got into them. He never said where he had seen it. The last sheet was a row of little silhouettes, one after another, the creature rising and folding down again like a rope being coiled.

The creature stood, shook out its fur, and walked off toward the dodgems. Ada followed with the tarpaulin, which was pointless. At the edge of the field it stopped beside a clump of foxgloves and bent its head, and a small green frog hopped from a leaf onto its back as though it had been waiting for the appointment. Ada laughed out loud, the first time in three days.

When she got back to the caravan the drawer was open, and a new sheet lay on top, still damp at one corner. It showed a girl on a wet field holding a tarpaulin like an umbrella, and beside her a grey shape looking up at her with its big round eyes. In the margin, in her grandfather's shaky pencil, was a single line: she will want the big umbrella for the dry days, so let her carry the small one for now.