Black and grey dotwork lotus mandala tattoo centred on the upper back, with a row of dots running down from it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lotus mandala on upper back

Dotwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A symmetrical lotus flower sits at the centre of the upper back, built from layered petals with geometric inner outlines and a central bud. The petals are filled with fine stippled dotwork shading that gives them depth against the bare outlines. Three small dots extend below the flower and a short dotted line rises above it, with a thin chain visible at the neck.

Dotwork Geometric Botanical Back Lotus Mandala Flower Dot Petal

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 third dot went in below the bud at twenty past four, and Nell Harrigan sat back on her stool until the lamp stopped humming. Nobody else was left on the floor at Abbeyfield Engraving. The big presses had gone quiet an hour before, and the only sound was the tap of her stippling tool against the brass, one dot, a pause, then another, the way her father had taught her when she was nine and too impatient to do anything else.

Keep reading

The commission sat under the lamp: a watch case for a shipping agent in Hull, a lotus opening from the centre of the lid, its petals ruled in fine lines and filled with dots so close they read as grey from the doorway. The agent wanted it symmetrical. He wanted, in his letter, nothing that looked like it had come off a machine. Nell had spent eleven evenings on the inner petals alone, counting rows so she could stop thinking about the rent.

Her father had cut the same flower into the gatepost at the works in 1971, so the lorry drivers could find the yard after dark. When the site was sold for scrap nobody thought to save the post. Nell had kept his old tool roll instead, and the stipple tool in it had a crack down one side that she had never managed to fix.

She lifted the loupe, checked the lowest dot, and found it sat exactly where the others did. Three more went beneath the flower, small and round, one for each winter he had sat with her at the end of the bench. Then she wiped the plate, wrapped it in tissue, and turned off the lamp. Outside, the Hull agent's name was still on her order sheet, and the streetlight buzzed over an empty yard.