Two pairs of hands crossed on sand, decorated with gold and blue metallic mandala and paisley designs on the hands and wrists.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Metallic mandala designs on hands and wrists

Geometric · Hand · Mixed · Photo

Two pairs of hands are crossed over pale sand, with ornate designs on the backs of the hands and wrists. The motifs include a blue and teal mandala, scrolling paisley shapes, dot lines and lace-like patterns. The designs are finished in gold and silver metallic ink, and the close framing centres the hands against the soft, textured background.

Geometric Hand Forearm Mandala Paisley Dot Lace pattern Feather Swirl Metallic

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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

Tomas, the tin of silver powder is where you left it, under the oilcloth, and you are not to use the good gold on the ferry crowd. They pay for gold and then wipe it off at the first sea breeze. Save it for people who ask twice.

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Your uncle cut the first mandala on waxed card the winter the lighthouse lamp went out for good. He said a mandala is a map that forgets its own edges, and that the trick is to let the middle be heavier than the rim. I never understood him until I watched a little girl trace the petals with one fingertip, following them out to the dots and back in again, as if she were walking a circle that would not let her go.

Keep the dots in a line, always an odd number. Your uncle said an even count looks like a fence. Lace goes on the outside, where the eye gets tired and wants something to hold. The paisley curls and the feathers are only a way of telling the sand where you have been.

Last Tuesday a woman came in with a dog-eared book of designs and asked for a copy of the blue star you did for the fishmonger's daughter. I told her I could not copy it, only draw what the card wants. She laughed and said that was the same thing. She paid in coppers and left a stencil on the counter. Keep it. It is the only one I ever cut that folds back on itself, and I want to know if you can make it work.