Traditional style tattoo of a red heart within a dotwork mandala of petals and leaves, on the inner arm near the elbow.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Red heart and mandala on an arm

Traditional · Other · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows a red heart at the centre of a symmetrical mandala-like design of layered petals, leaves and dotted circles. Bold black outlines define the shapes, with stippled dotwork shading in the grey and purple sections. Colour is used in red, green, yellow and purple against black and grey, and the design fills the frame across a curved section of skin.

Traditional Dotwork Other Heart Mandala Petal Leaves

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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

The band at the Lyric Hall has already started on the second number when you find Marjorie by the coat rack, turning her ticket stub over and over as if it might tell her whether to stay. You take it from her, read the number aloud, and hand it back. She laughs at you for knowing it by heart.

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The floorboards were sanded smooth decades ago, and the spill of coloured lamps across them makes every couple look like they're wading through paint. Mrs Abernathy stitched a ring of scarlet silk onto Marjorie's sash the week before, with leaves in bottle green and mustard pressed around it, and she has been touching it all night as though it might come loose.

Nobody warned you that a dance hall keeps its own calendar. The clock over the bar stopped at ten to eleven in 1962 and nobody has wound it since, so every quickstep runs forever. Marjorie says it is the only honest thing left in Hastings. You ask her to dance anyway, and she says yes before you finish the sentence.

When the last waltz comes round, the lights dim to a dull amber and you stop counting steps. Her hand sits flat between your shoulder blades. Near the stage a man is folding away the tall sheet music, and you realise you have been waiting all evening for someone to ask you to stay. Marjorie does it first, quietly, into your collar. The clock keeps its time. You keep turning.