Enlarged with AI from a smaller original
Small mandala flower on a forearm
Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo
A small, symmetrical mandala flower with layered petals and a dotted centre sits on the inner forearm. It is drawn in thin, even black linework with no shading. The photograph is in black and white against a plain, soft grey background, with the tattoo placed near the middle of the frame.
Find an artist for thisTake 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
Nobody in Multan would hire a tile-setter who could not draw a rosette without a compass, so my uncle made me learn it with string and a stick before he let me touch the brass. Twelve petals first, then the ring inside them, then the smaller petals that sit in the gaps like guests who arrived late. You must keep the lines thin. Thick lines drown in lime plaster and the whole flower turns to mud.
Keep reading
I drew one for the well shrine the spring the river dropped and the women stopped coming down to fill their jars. The shrine wall was blank. My uncle said a blank wall invites the wrong kind of stranger, so I worked three days on the rosette, lying on a plank above the bricks with the sun on my neck. Each petal I pricked with the point, and the point left a small dark hole at the centre where the whole design turned.
When the plaster had set, the women came back, and the eldest, Bibi Raza, pressed her thumb to that pinprick and laughed. She said every good flower begins with someone holding still in the middle. My uncle grumbled that I had spoiled the work. I did not tell him the hole was not a mistake. Without it you have only lines that go round and round and arrive nowhere.
Years later I still touch that dot when I pass the shrine, and the petals spread out from under my hand like water finding its level.
More like this
From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.