Black dotwork mandala tattoo with a central flower and layered petals on the upper arm, below a white lace top.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black mandala on upper arm

Dotwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A symmetrical black mandala sits on the outer arm, with a central flower surrounded by layered petal shapes and a ring of small dots. The linework is fine and solid, with stippled dotwork shading that gives the petals depth. The tattoo is shown in black ink only against pale skin, with a white lace top and dark denim at the edge of the frame.

Dotwork Geometric Upper arm Mandala Flower Petal Dot

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 lino on the ninth-floor landing had been laid in circles by someone with a compass and no patience, and Mr Halloran said it was the only thing in Calder House that had ever been finished properly. He sent me up with a tin of grey paint and a brush the width of a thumb and told me to make the scuffs disappear. I spent the first morning doing nothing of the kind. I sat on the stairs and looked at the pattern instead, petals opening out from a centre no bigger than a bottle top, a ring of dots at the rim as if someone had flicked a pen.

Keep reading

Each dot took me a breath to place. Halloran's late wife had worked the presses at the print works on Canal Street, and she had taught him that a dot is a decision. You put it down and you don't go back. So I stippled the damaged corners the way he described, one fleck at a time, working outwards from the middle so the petals would meet where they should. The lift groaned past every few minutes, and between floors I could hear the flats going on without us: a radio, a kettle, someone practising scales through a wall.

By the end of the week the scuffs had gone and so had most of the pattern. Halloran came up with his torch, crouched, and ran a thumb over the new grey. He said nothing for a long while. Then he counted the outer ring out loud, and when he reached forty-eight he nodded as though I had passed an exam he set himself years ago.

On the way down he told me his father had laid that floor, and that the whole block would come down within two years. I should keep the brush, he said. I still have it, dried stiff, in the drawer under the phone.