Black and grey dotwork mandala tattoo across the upper back of a person with short hair, photographed from behind.

Mandala tattoo across upper back

Dotwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large symmetrical mandala covers the upper back, with a central flower surrounded by layered rings of petals, triangles and banded patterns. Dotwork shading builds texture and depth, while fine linework outlines the scalloped outer edge and a dotted fringe that hangs below. The design is rendered in black and grey ink on pale skin against a plain light background.

Dotwork Geometric Back Mandala Flower Geometric pattern Dot Star Symmetry

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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

Dear Nan, the ceiling rose came down in my hands on Tuesday, all of it at once, like a cake lifted from its tin. I had the dust sheets down and Mr Okafor's ladder propped against the bay, and the plaster simply gave, and there was the middle of it lying on the boards in twelve pieces, the flower with its fat petals turned up toward a ceiling nobody had looked at since 1931.

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The rings round the flower are not moulded at all. Someone pricked them. Under my lamp I could see the tiny holes, thousands of them, a dot every few millimetres, packed so close that the shadows build up like a shaded drawing. Whoever did it must have sat on that ladder for weeks with a darning needle and a jar of ash, and at the outer edge they had hung a fringe of little drops, each one a single point of plaster on a thread that is now only a scratch. I counted forty-two before my eyes gave up.

Mrs Lowther, who owns the house, says her husband's mother did it while the men were at the pit, and that she never told anyone how. I believe her. Nobody measures a thing that carefully unless they need it to hold still.

I've cast a new centre from the best fragment, and on Saturday I'm going to prick the fringe back in by hand, drop by drop, so that when the lamp goes on in the front room the light falls through the same gaps it did before. Keep the kettle on. I'll ring when the last drop is in. Love, Jo