Black ink mandala tattoo with dotwork detail on the outer forearm of a person with a gold ring, wearing a lace top and dark jeans.

Black mandala on a forearm

Geometric · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black mandala with a central flower sits on the outer forearm, surrounded by petal shapes, circles and a ring of small dots. The linework is crisp and even, with dotwork shading used for texture in the petals and border. The tattoo is the only colour in the image, set against pale skin, a cream lace top and dark denim.

Geometric Dotwork Forearm Mandala Flower Petal Dot Circle

Find an artist for this

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 lodger in the back attic had been pricking dots into the oilcloth of my kitchen table for a fortnight before I thought to ask him what he was doing. Each evening after supper he sat with a darning needle and a candle, pressing tiny holes in a ring around a single point, the way you would mark out a pie crust. 'Tide tables,' he said, when I finally asked. 'Not for the sea. For the house.'

Keep reading

He had been a chart maker at the Admiralty once, before the war took the sight from one eye and his patience with it. He explained that every petal in the pattern was a night he had stayed under our roof, and every circle was a room he had searched for his brother's letters. I did not believe a word. But the ring of dots grew, and the petals spread outward across the oilcloth like a flower opening in slow motion, and by October the centre held a small star that matched nothing in any atlas I owned.

On the last night of the season he asked me to fetch the lamp. He traced the outermost circle with one finger and told me the pattern was finished, and that it could be read in either direction. Then he folded the oilcloth in four, put it into my hands, and went down to the pier for the early train without his bag.

I have never found the brother. But on Sunday mornings, when the sun comes through the scullery window at the right slant, I lay the cloth flat on the table and count the dots, and they come out to exactly the number of nights he stayed.