Black ornate mandala and diamond motifs with dotted linework running down a thigh, in a henna-style design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mandala panel design on a thigh

Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A bare leg rests on a bed with the thigh facing the camera. A vertical column of black ornamental motifs runs down it, including a small eye-like shape, a round mandala medallion, and a diamond panel, joined by fine dotted lines and small leaf-like sprigs. The solid black ink sits on warm skin against soft white bedding and grey cushions.

Thigh Mandala Medallion Diamond Dotted line Leaf Eye Ornamental pattern

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 cloth had been folded so long its creases had turned into pale stripes, and Ruth had to hold it up to the window before the pattern showed itself. Mrs Pell took it from her without asking, the way she took most things, and laid it flat on the oilcloth beside a saucer of henna gone the colour of stewed tea.

Keep reading

'Eye at the top,' she said, tapping with the blunt end of a cocktail stick. 'That one watches the road. The round one is for sitting still. The diamond is for the bit where you get up and go.' She pressed the stick along a dotted line that ran from one medallion to the next, and the dots joined up like stitches. 'Dotted lines are the journey. Nobody draws a journey solid.'

Ruth asked who had made it. Mrs Pell didn't look up. She turned the hem over, and there in faded biro were the initials V.K., a date in 1971, and a note in a careful hand: for the boat, if the boat goes. Outside on Tanner Lane a lorry ground its gears on the hill, and the sound came through the glass like something being decided.

Mrs Pell dipped the stick, took Ruth's wrist in her cool fingers, and drew the first dot there without asking. 'Now you're on the line,' she said. 'Keep still for the round one.'

Ruth kept still. The dotted route ran on up the inside of her arm, and she felt it set and darken, a road she had only just been shown.