Black and grey mandala tattoo of layered petals, leaves and dot details on a shoulder, with a botanical and geometric style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mandala floral design on a shoulder

Botanical · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A large, symmetrical mandala built around a central flower with layered petals, concentric rings and scalloped leaves. The design uses fine outlines, dotwork accents and solid dark fill, with a soft grey shading on the petals. The image is a close crop of the skin, with the design filling most of the frame and no colour ink visible.

Botanical Geometric Shoulder Mandala Flower Petal Leaves Dot Ring

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

Dear Morag,

Keep reading

The ferry was late again, so I sat in the kitchen with the tin of pigment and your old saucer, and I made the flower Mam used to draw on the lids of the biscuit tins. I wanted to be sure my hand still knew it. It does. Five fat petals round a seed of dots, then the rings going out like the grain in a felled ash, then the little scalloped leaves pushing up between them. I did it three times on the back of a seed catalogue before the paste went tacky enough to trust.

Mrs Tulloch came up the road at four to ask if I'd do the new christening cloth, and I told her I'd only do it if she counted the dots aloud with me. She got to forty-one and swore she'd lost her place. We began again. The wind had come round to the north by then and the window kept rattling in its frame, so we pulled the chairs close to the stove and talked about nothing, which is the best way to get a steady line.

You'll think I'm daft, but I drew the whole flower again on the steamed glass of the back window when the kettle boiled, then rubbed it out with my sleeve before the light changed. Nobody was there to see it but the gulls.

The boat leaves on Thursday with you on it. Keep the catalogue page. The rings start at the middle and work out, so if you lose the pattern on the mainland, begin at the centre and it will come back to you.

Your sister, Iseabail