Black dotwork mandala tattoo with lotus-like petals on the forearm, surrounded by blue, purple and pink watercolour splashes.

Mandala and watercolour splash on a forearm

Dotwork · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A symmetrical mandala with lotus-like petals sits at the centre of the forearm, drawn in black linework with fine dotwork stippling. Loose blue, violet and pink watercolour washes spread behind and below the design, running down the arm. The mandala is the focal point, and the colour fades outwards across the skin.

Dotwork Geometric Forearm Mandala Lotus Watercolour Splash Petal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The river below Hollin Lane ran blue most mornings, because my grandmother emptied her vats into it before the mill wheel had its first turn. She said the beck forgave her for that, and so did the alders at the forest's edge, which gave her bark for the violet and bramble for the pink. I was twelve and trusted to carry the buckets, not to dip anything.

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The flower on the flagstone by her door was her own idea, though the priest said she had copied it from a prayer cloth a cousin brought back from the coast. She drew it first in chalk, a ring of petals folded in on each other like a closed hand, and then made me prick in the dots with a bone needle while she kept the big wash moving. Stipple the edges, she told me, never the middle. The middle is for the light to sit in.

The autumn the rain came sideways, the colours ran off the stone and down the path to the gate. I cried over it, and she laughed and said the running was the point, that nothing held on wet ground unless it was willing to spread. She took the chalk and drew a small circle in the empty heart of the flower, then left it bare.

When the rain stopped, the blue had soaked as far as the church wall and the pink had found the mill steps. The bare circle stayed white and dry. I still stand on that flag when the beck runs high, and the pale centre is the first thing I look for.