Black and grey dotwork mandala tattoo on the upper arm, with a solid black band along the lower edge of the armband.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dotwork mandala armband on upper arm

Dotwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A circular mandala design with radiating petals, scalloped arches and rows of dots fills the upper arm. The linework is built from dense stippling and bold outlines, with the shading creating depth across the petals. A solid black band runs along the lower edge, framing the design against the skin.

Dotwork Geometric Upper arm Mandala Petal Dot Armband

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

They had been towing the barge Marrow up the Teme for nine days when the boy first saw the circle under the weir. It opened and closed on the brown water like a flower that could not make up its mind, its petals ringed with small white dots of foam. Ned Corby, who steered, said it was only the light. His grandmother, who had kept the cabin for forty years, said nothing. She climbed down to the strake, fetched her tin of pins and her pot of soot ink, and began.

Keep reading

She worked through the afternoon, pricking the same pattern into the painted board above the tiller: a half-sun of scalloped arches, then rows of dots, then a deep black band along the bottom to keep the sun from sliding into the river. Each dot took a breath. When Ned asked why she bothered with the dark band, she told him that water takes hold of whatever it can see the edge of, and a border is the only thing that tells the river where a design stops.

That night the barge slid past Stourport lock without a sound. The lock-keeper's lamp went out as they passed, and in the morning the gates stood open and the river ran clean. Ned never saw the circle again, but he kept the board. Every spring he went over the dots with a thumb of soot so the petals would stay sharp.