Close view of a full arm sleeve in white ink showing mandala and leaf ornament on the upper arm and shoulder.

White ink mandala sleeve on upper arm

Geometric · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A bare upper arm and shoulder are covered in an ornamental sleeve of white ink, with circular mandala motifs, leaf-like shapes and scalloped bands. The fine, even linework is raised against the skin, so the design shows mainly as pale texture in daylight. The composition wraps around the arm, with a sheer white garment at the lower right.

Geometric Upper arm Shoulder Mandala Leaf Ornament Pattern Sleeve

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

Dear Ines,

Keep reading

The boat was late again, so the thread came over in the post sack instead of with the merchant, and I have been at the pattern book since first light trying to make the rose-ring from the Hallam drawing sit true. You will laugh, but it is the white on white that defeats me. Bone-coloured thread laid on milk-coloured linen, and the eye keeps losing the design unless the sun comes in low across the table from the west.

Mrs Tulloch says I should stop fretting and work the mandala as it comes, circle inside circle, the way her mother taught her on this same step. I told her the scallops want counting, not guessing. She only laughed and pointed at the window, where the noon light had flattened everything into one pale sheet, and said that in full daylight nobody can tell a stitch from a shadow anyway. Only the people who have sewn it know where it is.

I went down to the shore after supper with the lamp unlit, because I wanted to see whether the pattern could be felt rather than read. The tide had pulled back over the sand and left a thin wet skin on the stones, and the light from the lighthouse ran across it in rings. Some of the rings were scalloped. Some had leaves. I stood there until the beam came round again, and then I went back up and began the next circle without counting a single stitch.

Write when the next boat comes.

Morag