Black and grey back tattoo of a woman in an ornate headdress, surrounded by lotus flowers, peony and cherry blossom, on the upper and middle back.

Woman portrait and lotus back piece

Neo-trad · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large back piece shows a woman with an ornate headdress and drop ornaments, framed by a circular halo-like design. Lotus flowers spread across the lower back, and a peony, cherry blossom sprigs and music notes fill the upper left shoulder blade. The work uses fine linework and soft grey shading, with no colour ink.

Neo-trad Botanical Back Woman Portrait Headdress Lotus Peony Cherry blossom Music note Script Moon 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 fairground organ has been wheezing the same waltz since Tuesday, and you have been told to finish the lotus before the Hull crowd arrives. Your uncle Tomas stretches the canvas over the booth's back wall with tacks between his teeth, grumbling that a fortune-teller needs a moon behind her head or the customers ask for their pennies back. You have a jar of grey, a fine sable and a list of forbidden colours: no red, no gold, nothing the council inspector would call a saint.

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Madame Ilse, who sells her fortunes for two shillings and a cup of stewed tea, arrives at noon with her hair piled high and a silver chain she keeps for her own fingers. She tells you the woman in the painting is named Vesna, a clockmaker's daughter who played piano at the Odeon until the notes went out of her. You do not believe a word, but you find yourself shading the peony petals softer, one stroke at a time, so the flower looks like it is only just deciding to open.

By dusk the lotus has swallowed the lower panel and the music notes drift up the left side like smoke from a cigarette someone forgot. Uncle Tomas steps back, squints, and says the face looks like somebody he used to know. You tell him it is nobody. He lights his pipe and says that is what the lady always says, and then the generator cuts out and the whole fair goes dark except for the moon you painted, which somehow still catches the lamplight.

Next morning you find a slip of paper tucked under the sable's case in neat copperplate: Keep the halo unfinished. Someone will want to step into it. You leave it blank, and the stall is full by ten.