Black ink drawing of a symmetrical mandala with petal shapes, dotted shading and a small central medallion, shown on a white card against a pale wooden background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black ink mandala design

Dotwork · Black and grey · Flash

A symmetrical mandala drawn in black ink on white paper, built from eight large petals around a ringed central medallion. Fine stippled dots and short hatched lines create the shading, with small leaf and teardrop shapes spaced between the outer petals. The design sits centred on a white card placed on weathered, whitewashed wooden planks.

Dotwork Geometric Mandala Flower Petal Dot Circle Medallion Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Maud,

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The rain came in sideways at nine this morning and I have spent the whole day under Ivor's awning watching it stipple the canvas. Every drop lands, spreads into a grey ring, then slides off the edge in a bead. You would have hated it and then made a poem about it. I have simply stood here with my hands round a tin cup of tea going cold.

Ivor sells brass medallions he bought from a house clearance in Hebden Bridge, each one stamped with eight petals around a ringed centre. Nobody wants them. I counted eleven people this morning who asked for the cheap enamel teapots, and one man who wanted to know if the petals were real flowers pressed flat. Ivor just shrugs and wipes the water off the tray with his sleeve.

Around one o'clock a boy of about nine stopped by the trestle, ignored the teapots completely, and traced a petal with a wet finger. He asked what it was for. Ivor, who has never once in my hearing given a straight answer, said it was for keeping the middle still while everything else went round. The boy nodded as though this made perfect sense and paid his fifty pence in coppers.

I am posting this from the tea urn at the back, where the roof does not leak. Ivor has given me the rest of the medallions to take home, which he says is robbery in reverse. I think I will hang the smallest one in the kitchen window, where the light comes through the petals in the afternoon.

Love, Ada