Black and grey dotwork mandala tattoo with a hanging teardrop pendant on the inner wrist and forearm.

Mandala wrist tattoo with teardrop pendant

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A clenched hand rests against a grey fabric surface, showing a black mandala-style tattoo on the wrist and forearm. The design has a central lotus-like flower with layered petals, surrounded by fine dotwork shading and a scalloped outer border. A small teardrop pendant hangs from a short chain beneath the motif. The image is taken at a slight angle with soft, low lighting and a pink knitted sleeve at the bottom edge.

Dotwork Botanical Forearm Mandala Lotus Flower Teardrop Pendant Chain Dot Wrist

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 ferry is gone and the causeway won't show its stones again until morning, so you sit on the cold step of the chandler's shop with the last teardrop of silver in your palm and try to finish it before the light goes. Your aunt used to say a lotus needs patience more than skill. Every petal is a small argument with the metal, and you have been losing the argument for three days.

Keep reading

The commission came from a woman on the mainland who wanted her mother's mandala copied onto a chain: a lotus with layered petals, fine dots pricked round its edge like frost on a window, and at the bottom a single drop that could be a tear or a seed. You rebuilt it from a photograph, then from memory, then from the grain of a worn brass tray in the back room. The dots were the worst. You punched each one by hand, counting under your breath, until the count meant nothing and only the hammer kept time.

At dusk the gulls settle on the wall and the wind drops, and you finally hear the sea reach the bottom stone of the causeway. You fix the clasp, thread the chain through the pendant's small eye and hold it up to the last grey light. The lotus throws its shadow across your knuckles, every dot sharp. It is not the copy she asked for. It is better, because you stopped trying to make it match and let the dots fall where your hand wanted them.

Tomorrow the tide will give the road back. Tonight you wrap the piece in a scrap of blue cloth and tuck it into your coat, where it sits just above your heart, light as a drop of rain that has decided to stay.