Black and grey mandala tattoos on the upper arm and upper back of a woman with dark hair, seen from behind.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mandala tattoos on upper arm and back

Dotwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A woman with dark hair, photographed from behind, shows two large mandala tattoos: one wraps around the upper arm and shoulder, the other sits on the upper back. The designs use fine and dotted linework with dense shading, forming radial patterns of petals and rings. The tattoos are rendered in black and grey ink against plain, softly lit skin in an indoor setting.

Dotwork Geometric Upper arm Shoulder Back Mandala Flower Floral pattern

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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 Tom, The snow has sealed the Old Hoddern road since Tuesday, so the coach will not come and neither, I suspect, will the engraver's rent. I am writing this at the back table of the Crooked Heron with my boots steaming by the grate, and Mrs Vell has lent me the pen she keeps for the ledger, the only thing in this house that has not been mended with string.

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The engraver is a thin, grey man called Absalom Reece. He arrived on the first night of the storm carrying a case of brass needles and a roll of tracing linen, and by morning he had drawn a rose of rings across the frosted pane of the taproom window. He works from the centre outwards, one petal at a time, with a point so fine the dots seem to float. He says every ring is a day he has walked away from something, and that a true mandala ends where the first dot began.

Last night I asked him how he finds his way home with no map. He tapped the outer ring and said the petals are bearings, eight of them, each pointing toward a town he has not yet visited. He has never once reached the rim. I laughed, and he did not, and then he showed me the drawing he is copying for a client in Penzance, a shoulder piece that will take three sittings to shade.

This morning the sun came through the frost and turned the window into a lamp of black lace. I put my thumb to the centre dot and traced outward, ring by ring, until my hand reached the edge of the glass and stopped. Absalom was already packing his needles. I think I will stay until the road opens, Tom, if only to learn where he is going next. Your loving sister, Win.