Black ink linework drawing of two mandala motifs with dashed triangles, circles and dotted hexagon lines on cream paper, shown as a tattoo design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Geometric mandala design sketch

Geometric · Black and grey · Flash

A pen drawing on cream paper shows two mandala-style rosettes with layered petals and fine concentric lines. Dashed triangles, circles and dotted construction lines link the motifs, and a dotted hexagon sits at the lower right. The work is done in black ink on white paper, with no shading or colour.

Geometric Fine line Mandala Geometric line Dotted line Triangle Circle Hexagon Flower Dot

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 Ada,

Keep reading

The pricking pattern came back from the mill on Thursday with every dot in the wrong place, and Mr Hallam swore it was my drafting and not the card punch. I sat up with it until the lamplighter came round, compass in one hand and a pot of cold tea in the other, tracing the rosettes back to the three triangles I had struck first. Nothing is ever wrong with the triangles. It is the circles that lie.

Note the dotted line I put round the hexagon at the foot of the sheet. Mr Hallam wanted it straight. I told him a lace edge that does not turn is a lace edge that tears, and he laughed and let me have it. He does not know I learned the hexagon from Mother's cloth, the one with the bees stitched into the hem.

Before dawn the mill yard is the only quiet place in Lenton. The frames are still and the pigeons have not yet started on the gutters, so I work by the window with the grey light coming up over the chimneys. By six the first shift will be clattering in and the bobbins will be humming, and my pattern will be fed through the Jacquard as if it had always been there.

I am enclosing the drawing so you can see the rosette I got right on the third attempt. The small dotted circles at the bottom are the ones that matter. Keep them clean when you copy it, and do not let anyone tell you the centre is finished until the last dot is on the paper.

Your loving sister, Nell