Black and grey Ganesha elephant tattoo with ornate mandala detailing on a forearm, with a second dotwork mandala tattoo on the arm below.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ganesha elephant and mandala forearm tattoo

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A large elephant head, with a small om symbol on its forehead, is set within ornate mandala linework on the upper forearm. Fine dotwork stippling builds the shading on the elephant and its lotus-like petals, while a second dotwork mandala design sits on the lower arm. The tattoos are in black and grey ink and fill the frame, with a watch and a pink bracelet visible at the wrist.

Dotwork Forearm Elephant Ganesha Mandala Lotus Om symbol Floral ornament

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

The brass Ganesha had hung above the chart table since Colombo, and by the fourth week out of Suez nobody aboard the Harrow Star looked at it any more. Ruth had stopped looking too, until the barometer began its slow slide and the old cook, Mr Pillai, came up to the bridge with a saucer of marigolds and set it beneath the little elephant god as if laying out a place for a guest.

Keep reading

'Remover of obstacles,' he said, to nobody in particular. 'We will need him before Singapore.'

Ruth, second mate for eleven years, believed in tide tables and nothing else. She said nothing. She watched the swell lift the bow and lower it again, and thought about the lashings in number three hold, which she had checked twice and did not trust.

The blow came at two in the morning. A sea came over the forecastle with a sound like a slammed door, the deck tilted, and the bracket that held the figure gave with a crack. Ruth caught it one-handed as it fell. The brass was warm from the lamp, the raised om on its forehead smooth under her thumb, and the trunk curled round her wrist as though it had decided to hold on too. She bolted it back with her teeth clenched and the helmsman shouting numbers at her.

By dawn the sea had gone the colour of wet slate and the wind had dropped to nothing. Pillai was in the galley, pale and steady, stirring rice. The saucer sat on the chart table, its marigolds scattered and bruised. Ruth picked up one petal, pressed it flat against the glass, and left it there.