Forearm tattoo of an ornamental mandala with red linework on the upper part and black linework below, shaped around flower-like petals and a dotted circle.

Red and black mandala on a forearm

Geometric · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A forearm covered by an ornamental mandala design built from flower-like petals, concentric rings and a dotted circle at the top. The upper section is drawn in red linework with fine detail, while the lower section uses black linework with a star-shaped centre and layered scalloped rings. The design is set on a dark background, with the composition running the length of the forearm.

Geometric Botanical Forearm Mandala Flower Petal Dot Ring Star 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

Mind the kettle, the lot of you, and shift along the bench so Ada can get her feet to the stove. Now. You want the one about the lace-maker's daughter in Honiton, or the one about the dance hall at Brightlingsea? Both will keep until the tea's brewed, but I'll tell you the second, because it has the red in it, and red is what the children always ask after.

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There was a hall on the front with a sprung floor and a ceiling painted like a midsummer sky, all rings of pale gold and dots of silver where the stars should be. Nobody danced there who didn't know the steps, and the caller was a widow called Mrs Pearce who wore her hair in a coil and kept a pencil behind her ear. Her husband had worked the lace frames before the mill shut. He used to say a pattern is only a promise you make to your hands. She had his old pricking book, pinholes pushed through card, and she copied every design she loved into it, dot by dot.

One winter a stranger came in off the pier with a roll of drawings under his arm. He wanted the hall to take a dance he'd made up, a ring of petals that turned inward until the couples met at a black star in the middle. Mrs Pearce looked at the first sheet a long time. Then she took the pencil from behind her ear and drew one red petal on the back of his hand, and said, that's the only colour this floor will hold. So he took red for the open petals and black for the closing star, and the dancers did the turn every Saturday until the spring.

And they say that if you stand under that painted sky on a still night, you can still see the dotted ring up near the lamp, and the red going round it, and the black waiting in the middle for whoever is brave enough to finish the turn. Now then. Who wants the kettle?