Black ink blackwork tattoo of a dotwork floral mandala running from the forearm across the back of the hand, with black nail polish and a thin silver ring.

Blackwork floral mandala on forearm and hand

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A large floral mandala covers the inner wrist and forearm and continues over the back of the hand, with a central bloom, pointed petal shapes and fine radiating lines. The design combines solid black fills, bold outlines and stippled dot shading, all in black ink on a dark background. The image is entirely black and grey, with the hand and fingers lit against a plain black backdrop.

Blackwork Dotwork Botanical Forearm Hand Flower Mandala Dot Petal Line

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Marit had been counting dots since the boat went out short of its crew. She sat on an upturned creel at Ness Harbour with a steel nib and a saucer of Indian ink, pricking tiny holes into card the way her mother had taught her to prick lace patterns. Each dot was a breath the sea had not yet taken back.

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The design was meant for the chapel door, a bloom with eight pointed petals, solid where the water ran deepest and fine threads where the light came through. Her brother Tam had sketched it on the back of a tide chart the week before he rowed out to the skerry. He had left the chart folded under the tea caddy with a note in his blocky hand: finish it before the spring fair, I'll be back for the first herring.

She worked through the dark months. At the centre she filled the petals solid, black as the cold water off Rona, and at the edge she let the radiating lines run past the margin of the card, as if they were searching for him. One night, when the lamp guttered, she found she had drawn one petal more than the pattern allowed. Count the petals, her grandmother used to say, and you count the men.

In March the gulls came back, and so did the boat, with Tam sitting in the stern, one hand bandaged and grinning like a fool. Marit laid the card on the kitchen table between them. He ran his thumb over the dots and frowned at the extra petal. "You added one," he said. "I left a space for you," she said, and for once he had nothing to say back.