Black and grey dotwork and blackwork mandala tattoo with a radial geometric pattern, placed on the back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dotwork and blackwork mandala on the back

Dotwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A circular mandala tattoo with a central rosette of petal shapes, surrounded by layered outer rings of stepped points, leaf-like forms and scattered dots. The design uses bold outlines, solid black fills, hatched lines and stippled dotwork shading to create depth. It is entirely black and grey and fills the centre of the frame against plain skin.

Dotwork Blackwork Geometric Back Mandala Flower Petal Dot Geometric pattern Rosette

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

Mam, the tide clock in the boathouse has stopped again, so I am writing this by the lamp instead of trusting my memory of the hour. The wind came round to the north on Tuesday and stayed there, which Mr Halloran says means the herring will go deep and the lobster boats will come in late. I have counted the sea wall stones twice since then. There are four hundred and twelve from the slipway to the iron ring, and I know that because I did it on my knees while you were at the chapel.

Keep reading

The man from the mapping office came back on the ferry yesterday with a crate of brass dividers and a drawing he would not let me hold. He said the island's rose is to be cut into the new breakwater, every petal laid out to the inch, so that ships can read the bearings off it from the sea. I told him the petals were not the important part, that the dots were, because every dot is where the old tide pools sat before the sea took them. He looked at me as if I had answered a question nobody asked. Then he asked whether I would sign the drawing, so I did, with the left hand, the way you taught me to sign things I did not wish to be bound by.

I have kept the small brass compass he left on the step. It points true north when the lamp is cold and somewhere else entirely when the lamp is lit, which I think is the most honest thing I have ever owned. Tell Father I will come on the next boat, and if the petals are wrong, I will wrong them myself, one dot at a time.