Black and grey dotwork mandala tattoo with fine linework on the upper arm of a woman in a white vest top.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dotwork mandala on an upper arm

Dotwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large radial mandala with stacked petal shapes and a starburst at the top left, filling the upper arm. The design is built from fine black outlines with stippled dotwork shading that fades into lighter grey, giving a sense of depth. The raised arm and cropped frame place the tattoo diagonally across the image against a white background and a white vest top.

Dotwork Geometric Upper arm Mandala Petal Starburst Geometric pattern

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

Dear Win, the band packed up at half eleven and I am sat on the edge of the stage with my shoes off, writing this on the back of a cloakroom ticket because the good paper is locked in the office with Mr Pardoe's ledgers. You would not believe what the floor looked like tonight once the lights went down.

Keep reading

For forty years the Palais has had a sunburst laid into the boards at its centre, a great round of petals in oak that every Saturday's dancers scuff a little greyer. Last month Mr Pardoe hired a man from Leeds to sand it back, and he sanded the whole circle away. Tonight I found the fellow on his knees with a tin of ink and a steel pin, pricking tiny dots into the wood the way you would stipple a lampshade. He said the petals were the easy part. The hard part was making the middle look as though it was rising toward you.

I stood there in my good blue dress and asked him to stop. I told him the girls come to dance on the flowers, not beside them. He laughed and said then they would have to learn to dance on dots. So I held the lamp while he worked, and the light ran from black at the rim to pale grey at the heart, just as he meant it to, and every dot caught it like sugar on a windowsill.

Mr Pardoe wants the ballroom shut by spring. I have told him I will buy the lease myself if I must. Come up in June and dance on the sunburst with me before the sea takes the front. Yours, Ada.