Black linework mandala and paisley tattoo covering a woman's shoulder and upper arm, shown in two side-by-side photographs.

Mandala and paisley shoulder and upper arm piece

Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A dense mandala with a central rosette sits on the top of the shoulder, with paisley-like floral scrolls and smaller flower motifs running down the upper arm. The work is fine black linework with little shading, and the image is in black and grey tones. Two photos show the tattoo from different angles against a pink top and pale wall.

Shoulder Upper arm Mandala Paisley Flower Ornament Rosette

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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

Sit closer, you with the wet hat, and mind the drip from the awning. The rain has fallen on this market since before your grandmother was born, and it will not stop to suit us. Now listen. This is about Farida, who sold thread at the far end, where the fish smell gives way to cloth.

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Farida had one bolt of indigo silk that no dyer would touch, because the blue ran in the wet like ink in a bowl. So each morning she sat under the tin roof with a needle and worked the silk in black thread, round and round from a single stitched point, until a rosette the size of a saucer bloomed in the middle. Then came the petals, then teardrops curling like mango seeds, then small flowers at the edges, each one different. A pattern repeated exactly, she said, is only a sadness that forgot to change.

One evening a stranger came in from the downpour, a man with a leather satchel and no umbrella. He stood dripping on her cloth and asked what the centre was for. She told him it was the place where all the lines agreed to stop. He paid three coins, folded the shawl under his coat and walked off into the grey, and she never saw him again.

Years later a girl came to the stall holding a drawing on a damp scrap of paper. It was the rosette, traced from memory, every petal counted. Farida studied it a long while, then took her needle from its tin and said the centre had been waiting for someone to ask. Look, now. The rain has stopped, and the rosette is shining silver in that puddle by your boot.