Black and grey dotwork mandala tattoo with stacked arch shapes and a solid triangle, covering the inner forearm.

Mandala forearm piece in dotwork

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A forearm tattoo built from a central mandala motif framed by pointed arch shapes that run from the elbow side down to the wrist. The design combines solid black fills, fine outlines and dense stippled dots to create shading and texture across the piece. The image is greyscale against a plain black background, with the arm and relaxed hand shown from the front.

Dotwork Geometric Blackwork Forearm Mandala Arch Triangle Geometric pattern Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The chapel roof is off at last, and Mr Harrington has me on the north arch every morning, dressing the stone with a point and a mallet until my knuckles bleed through the gloves. He says the old masons worked every dot by hand, thousands of them, so the light would catch the face of the stone and not the chisel marks. I thought him daft until I tried one myself and found my wrist aching by ten o'clock.

The rose window is the real job. Rather than glass, the vicar wants the rose cut out of the stone again, eight petals round a hollow centre where the glass will sit, all of it framed inside a pointed arch like a lantern. Harrington drew it first on brown paper, pricked the lines through, and dusted chalk over the wall so we could see the pattern in the morning sun. The black triangle at the base is his own idea, a keystone of slate the quarry gave us for nothing because nobody else wanted it. He won't let anyone else set it.

Yesterday a boy from Hobb's farm came up the scaffold to watch and asked why the centre was left bare. Harrington said the glass wasn't ready, which is no answer at all, but he looked up at the sky when he said it. I have started to think he means to leave that hollow open for somebody else to fill.

Come up at Whitsun if you can, and bring the good gloves.

Your loving brother, Tom