Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a paisley and floral ornament with a leaf and a rose-like bud on the inner forearm near the wrist.

Paisley and floral mandala on a wrist

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A tattoo of an ornamental paisley design with a rose-like bud, a large leaf and curling scroll details, shown on the inner wrist and forearm of a hand held up against a blurred background. The outlines are bold and dark, with stippled dotwork shading filling the petals and leaves to create depth. The tattoo is entirely black and grey, and the composition centres the design on the wrist.

Dotwork Botanical Forearm Paisley Mandala Floral Rose Leaf Swirl Ornament

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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

Sit on the third step, Tariq, and keep your hands off the banister, it's older than your mum. The lift has been broken since Easter, so we'll take the stairs and I'll tell it one landing at a time, the way Roza told it to me when my knees were still good.

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Roza lived on the ninth floor of Hallam Court with a sewing machine that only ran in daylight. One winter the power went off for six weeks, so she stitched by the window with a candle stub stuck to a saucer. What she made was a shawl of grey wool with a paisley worked in black thread, a teardrop curling at the tip like a fern just uncoiling. In the middle sat a rose bud, closed tight, and she never once let anyone ask why it was closed.

When the council sent men to clear the flats, Roza wrapped the shawl round her shoulders and refused to leave the ninth floor. A young officer tried to reason with her. She told him the bud would open when the last family had its keys. He laughed, but he wrote it in his notebook anyway, and the following week the transfers came through, one door at a time.

Mind the loose tread, we're nearly at the landing. The shawl went to a charity shop in the end, folded with a silver thread drawn through the bud for every family that stayed. Count them with me, Tariq. Four silver stitches. Put your thumb on the cold window ledge and tell me which one you think she sewed last.