Black linework tattoo of a Russian nesting doll with a floral mandala pattern on the inner forearm, shown on a pale arm resting over a wooden floor.

Matryoshka doll on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A matryoshka doll with closed eyes, a headscarf and a central flower medallion surrounded by leaf and dot ornament fills the inner forearm. The design uses fine black outlines with light grey shading across the doll's body and base. The tattoo is centred on the forearm, with a hand with dark nail polish at the bottom of the frame and a wooden floor behind.

Fine line Forearm Doll Flower Mandala Leaves

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 smallest doll in the set was the one Nina would not paint, so on the Thursday before the fair Matvei sat down at her bench with the fine sable brush and did it himself. He had watched her close the eyes of every doll for twenty years. She gave them all the same lowered lids and the same small mouth, as though each had just finished a long thought and had no wish to be asked about it.

Keep reading

She had gone to Tver to sit with her sister, and she left a note pinned to the lathe in her cramped capitals: DO NOT GIVE THE SMALL ONE A FLOWER. FLOWERS ARE FOR THE MIDDLE ONES. He read it twice, then thinned the lamp black with a drop of linseed and began with the headscarf, one stroke at a time, the way she had taught him when he was a boy who could not sit still.

The medallion on the big doll had taken him three evenings, each petal wanting its own patience. By the time he reached the smallest figure his hand had found a rhythm. He gave her a leaf down each side and a scatter of dots like seed from a dropped packet. He did not give her a flower. Instead he shaded the base in soft grey so the wood seemed to hold a little of the cold from the window.

On Friday Nina came back smelling of train smoke and hospital soap. She picked up the smallest doll, turned it over, and found on the base, in the tiniest letters he could manage, the word wait. She stood the dolls in a row from tallest to least and said nothing for a long while. Then she laughed, once, and reached for the cloth to wipe the brushes clean.