Black and grey hamsa hand tattoo with an ornate pattern and a shaded eye, placed on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Hamsa hand with eye on the ribs

Dotwork · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A hamsa hand outline filled with ornamental patterns, leaf-like motifs and a shaded eye in the centre. The linework is fine and the dotted border adds texture, while soft grey shading gives the eye some depth. The design fills the frame against plain skin, with a dark area of clothing at the left edge.

Dotwork Realism Ribs Hamsa Hand Eye Leaves Pattern Mandala

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 stamp has jammed again, so you knock it twice on the heel of your palm, the way your father used to coax a stubborn engine, and it bites. Mrs Okonedo has crossed at Hallow Bridge forty-one times by her own count, and she watches the ink dry without comment. Behind her the queue of coaches breathes diesel into the sodium light.

Keep reading

Above the booth someone painted a hand years ago, fingers open, with a blue eye sitting in its palm like a coin. The paint has greyed at the fingertips. The night supervisor says it was meant to keep the lorry drivers honest, and nobody has ever dared to repaint it. You have started to think of it as the only thing on this crossing that looks at everyone the same way.

Mrs Okonedo's grandson is in the back seat with a tablet, his face lit blue. When you hand back her passport she taps the inside cover, where a pressed fern lies pale as a letter nobody sent. "My mother's," she says. "From the last village with a name. You may look, officer. It is not contraband, only a leaf."

You close the file, lift the barrier and wave her through. In the mirror her tail-lights blink once at the junction, the way a watchful eye does when it has decided you may pass. You keep the lamp on a little longer, and for the first time in four years you stamp a page without checking whether the ink is straight.