Forearm tattoo of a stitched anatomical heart with a plaster, tied to a blue watercolour-style balloon and a red gift box on a string.

Anatomical heart and balloon on a forearm

Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A healed or fresh tattoo on the inner forearm shows a realistic anatomical heart with pink, red and tan shading, stitches along its edges and a small beige plaster on one side. A blue balloon with soft watercolour washes rises from the top of the arm on a thin black line, and a red wrapped gift box hangs beneath it, with a red ribbon trailing down toward the heart. Loose red splatters appear around the heart, and the background shows a grey floor and black-and-white marks.

Forearm Heart Anatomical heart Balloon Ribbon Stitches Splatter Watercolour

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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 ward goes quiet after the second round of obs, and you find the blue balloon in the sluice room, tied to a bin lid by someone from the afternoon shift. Its ribbon has gone grey with dust. You untie it and carry it down the corridor the way you'd carry a full cup of tea, because nobody has come back for it and it seems wrong to leave it bobbing alone under the strip lights.

Keep reading

Mrs Pryce in bay four cannot sleep without the radio on low, and she has a gift box on her locker that she keeps touching as if it might leave. Her grandson gave it to her at teatime. It is wrapped in red paper with the corners pressed flat by small thumbs, and the ribbon trails off the edge of the locker towards the floor. She asks you what the balloon is for. You say it's for whoever needs cheering up at four in the morning, and she laughs, then winces, and holds the stitched place along her side with one hand.

She asks whether the monitor can be switched off so she can hear the wind. You can't do that, but you can tie the balloon to the bed rail with the red ribbon, so it knocks softly against the blind when the heating clicks on. She says her husband used to mend the kitchen chairs with string and patience, and that the surgeons' stitches look much the same to her, neat and a bit stubborn.

At dawn the balloon has drifted up to the ceiling tiles, and the day staff come in with their coats still zipped and ask who threw a party in bay four. You tell them nobody did. It just came in on the night, and somebody had to look after it.