Black and grey blackwork mandala tattoo with leaf-like petals on the forearm near the elbow, with partial tattoos visible above it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black mandala tattoo on the elbow

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A large circular mandala with a dense central motif and outward rings of leaf-like petals, drawn in bold black linework with solid black fills and fine stippled texture. The design sits on the outside of the elbow and forearm, with a few partly visible dark tattoos further up the upper arm. The image is in black and grey, with a plain light background and a dark garment on the right.

Blackwork Geometric Forearm Mandala Leaves Petal Floral pattern Geometric pattern

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mr Pryce wanted the centre done first, always, and he would stand behind me at the drawing board with his pipe gone cold while I worked the stipple in with a nib no thicker than a hair. "Start where the seed is," he said, "and the leaves will know where to go." The nursery in Wragby sent us their catalogue plates every spring, and the ones that sold were always the ones with the most leaves round the edge, as though customers wanted to be sheltered by them.

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That June I was given the mandala for the back cover of the autumn bulbs: a rosette of acanthus-shaped leaves, eight rings deep, with a dark boss at its heart. I inked the boss solid in the back room with the blinds down against the heat, the ink smelling of linseed, the wireless playing dance music from Nottingham. Mrs Hollis from the shop next door brought me tea in a chipped cup and asked what I was making, and I told her a flower that didn't exist yet.

The rings took me three weeks. I shaded each petal from the centre outward so the light seemed to come from the boss and fall away from it. On the last evening I found the outermost ring had run wider than the paper allowed, and I nearly cried, until I saw that the overhang made the whole thing look like it was turning on a spindle.

Mr Pryce studied it for a long time and said nothing, which from him was praise. He sent it to print without changing a line. When the catalogue came back in October the bulbs had sold out by Christmas, and I still keep a proof of that back cover folded in my handbag, the leaves spilling just past the edge.