Black and grey full arm sleeve tattoo with ornamental paisley and mandala patterns, a flower mandala and a Buddha face near the wrist, running from the upper arm down the forearm.

Full arm sleeve with mandalas and a Buddha face

Dotwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The sleeve covers the arm from the shoulder to the wrist with ornamental paisley-style scrollwork and a large flower mandala in the centre. A Buddha face with closed eyes and a central urna sits near the wrist, drawn with fine stippled shading. The piece is rendered entirely in black and grey ink, with dense dotwork textures that build soft tonal gradients against the skin.

Dotwork Botanical Upper arm Forearm Mandala Paisley Flower Buddha Lotus Sleeve Ornament Scrollwork

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 Amma, the rains came early this year and the scaffold at the western cave has stood in water for six days. Master Dhamma says we will not be paid until the wall is finished, so I have stopped counting the days and started counting the dots instead. He taught me that a line cut in stone is always a lie, because the chisel bites too deep, and that only a field of small points can hold the light the way a living face does.

Keep reading

Yesterday he set me to the ring of petals around the great flower above the doorway, the one the monks pass beneath when they walk out to beg. Each petal is built from hundreds of points, each no wider than a grain of millet, and each must be struck with the same weight or the petal will look like a bruise on the rock. My shoulder burned until I could no longer feel the hammer. The master came past with his lamp, looked for a long time, tapped one point with his fingernail, and said nothing. It was wrong, so I struck it again.

Today he gave me the lower wall, where the face of the Teacher sits with its eyes lowered. The lines of the brow curve down toward the cheeks like the grooves a river leaves in mud, and he would not let me touch the small mark between the eyebrows. He said that is the only place in the whole wall where a mason should work with an empty mind. I held the point against the stone and breathed out until the hammer was only a heartbeat.

At dusk the sun came low through the doorway and lay across the new work. Every point caught a little gold, and for a moment the whole face seemed to be dreaming the petals above it. Master Dhamma stood beside me and said that now the wall would outlast us both. I am sending this with the carter, so tell my brothers the bread is good here and I am not cold. Your son, Kasi.