Gold metallic mandala and lace-style tattoos on a hand, forearm and upper back, with hands crossed over the shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Gold metallic mandala and lace tattoos

Geometric · Hand · Colour · Photo

A close photograph of a person with curly dark hair, their hands crossed over their neck and shoulder. Gold metallic lace-style designs cover the back of the hand and forearm, dots sit near the neck, and a large white and gold mandala sits on the upper back. The shallow focus and warm, soft lighting keep the focus on the skin and ornamentation.

Geometric Hand Forearm Back Mandala Lace Dot Metallic Hand

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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 big top has three poles left standing, and the canvas over the north side has been patched with tarpaulin the colour of weak tea. You sit on an upturned crate in the dressing wagon, tin of gold size open at your knee, and paint the last lace onto Marisol's wrist because she insists the back row can still see it. They can't. You do it anyway.

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She talks while you work. About the wire act her father built, about the cook who left in March owing everyone money, about the letter from the council pinned beside the door saying the ground is wanted for flats. You keep the brush light. Dots first, a small cluster at the base of the throat where the spotlight will catch them, then the fine scroll down the forearm that took you three seasons to learn. Gold sits on brown skin like something lit from underneath, and she holds her hand up to the bulb and grins.

The mandala is the hard one. You draw it freehand on the upper back of the lion tamer's daughter, who has agreed to be your last canvas because she is leaving for a job at a theme park on the coast. Petals, rings, a centre you leave open for luck. You start in the middle and work outwards, the way your mother taught you with sand on a tray, and when you finish the sun is coming through the wagon slats in bars.

Outside, the band strikes up the opening waltz for the thirty people who came. You close the tin, wipe the brush on your apron, and walk out with the gold still wet on your hands, because nobody has ever seen a design that didn't need a little time to set.