Black geometric linework sleeve on a forearm, with a star-lattice pattern above and a mandala-like design below the elbow.

Geometric linework sleeve on an arm

Geometric · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

An arm wearing a sleeve of black geometric linework, with a lattice of interlocking star and polygon shapes running up the limb. A dense, symmetrical mandala-style motif sits lower down, and the arm is set against a plain grey top and a pale curtain. The lines are uniform and crisp, with no shading, and the image is entirely black ink on skin.

Geometric Forearm Geometric Lattice Star Mandala Pattern Sleeve Line

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth, the pattern book came back from the printers with the star lattice wrong again. Mr Halloran says the interlocking tiles are fine on paper but do not sit true on a wall, and I told him paper is where a pattern is supposed to be right. He laughed and said I could draw him something that holds itself together, then. So I have been at the drafting table since the lamps were lit, with a steel rule and the pair of dividers that belonged to our father.

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Here is the trick I found, and you must not tell Mr Halloran. Every point of an eight-pointed star comes from a circle, and every circle is set by the one before it, so if you draw the first ring slowly the rest will follow like ripples off a dropped stone. I put the rosette at the foot of the sheet, where the eye naturally stops, because a dense mandala wants to be looked at a long while before anyone asks why it is there.

The answer came to me yesterday, while I was rinsing ink from my fingers. The lattice never ends. It runs on past the edge of the paper, and that is the whole point: the pattern is only a piece of something that goes on. I have started inking it straight onto the cloth by the window, and the lines are so crisp in the morning light that I can see the grain of the card beneath them.

Come home at Christmas. Bring the good dividers back with you, I still owe them a polish.