Close view of a woman's hand and fingers with an intricate black ornamental design of paisley and lace-like patterns covering the back of the hand and wrist.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornate black design on back of hand

Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A woman rests her hand against her collarbone, showing an intricate black ornamental design covering the back of the hand, the fingers and the wrist. The pattern is built from fine lines, dots and symmetrical paisley and lace-like motifs. The image is cropped below the neck and above the chest, with a white top and a blue-grey textured wall in the background.

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 oven timer clicks off at ten to five and you are already holding the piping bag, because Mrs Okonedo ordered the wedding cake for seven and the lace has to set before the sugar sweats. You thin the royal icing with a drop of water, test the flow on a saucer, then start at the centre tier with a dot so small it could be a full stop.

Keep reading

The lines come easily after that. Scroll, scroll, dot, then a curl that opens into a paisley teardrop, the way your gran sketched lace in the margins of her recipe cards while the kettle boiled. Nobody else is in yet. There is only flour dust on the windowsill and the radio murmuring about the weather over the Pennines.

By half five the shop smells of brown butter and the first loaves are cooling on the racks. Elif comes in from the early shift, stamping cold from the yard, glances at the cake and says it looks like someone has embroidered the sponge. You tell her embroidery is slower. She says it's the same thing with better manners. You laugh, the bag jerks, and a dot lands crooked on the edge of a scroll.

You don't redo it. You pipe a small matching dot beside it instead, so the pair looks deliberate. When the light comes grey over the car park, you slide the cake onto the cold shelf, wipe the bag clean and realise the mistake is now the part customers will ask about.

More like this

Black henna-style mehndi design with lace-like mandala patterns across the back of a hand, wrist and fingers.
Black henna-style hands with lace patterns
Black linework tree with sparse branches and leaves, its trunk flowing down into a bird with spread wings, tattooed on the inner forearm in a botanical style.
Tree and bird on a forearm
Black and grey mandala tattoo with dotwork shading on the inner forearm, extending from the wrist towards the elbow.
Mandala tattoo on a forearm
Two hands and a forearm with black mandala, leaf and dot designs in a mehndi-style geometric pattern on the hands, wrist and forearm.
Ornate black mandala designs on hands and forearms
Close view of a black ink geometric mandala tattoo on a woman's shoulder, with a long braid falling over her other shoulder.
Black mandala tattoo on the shoulder
Black and white photo of a fine-lined ornamental tattoo with scrollwork and leaf shapes on a finger, with a second ornamental tattoo partly visible on the back of the hand.
Ornamental band tattoo on a finger
Dark ornamental design with mandala and paisley motifs across the back of a hand, fingers and wrist, extending towards the forearm.
Ornamental hand design across the back of the hand
Close view of a black dotwork mandala tattoo on a woman's shoulder, with a long braid falling over her other shoulder.
Black mandala tattoo on a shoulder
Black ornamental mandala design in a band across a raised forearm, against a plain pale pink background.
Mandala band on a forearm
Black ink mandala tattoo with dotwork detail on the outer forearm of a person with a gold ring, wearing a lace top and dark jeans.
Black mandala on a forearm
Two raised hands with black nails showing small fine line tattoos on the fingers and an ornate mandala design on the back of one hand, in black ink.
Finger tattoos and a mandala on the hand
Black ink mandala tattoo on a woman's shoulder, with dotwork and geometric detail, beside a long braid over a dark top.
Mandala tattoo on the shoulder

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.