Fine line black outline tattoo of an anatomical heart on the side of a finger, shown in a sepia-toned photo.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Anatomical heart on a finger

Fine line · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A small outline tattoo of an anatomical heart sits on the side of a finger, with the aorta and vessels drawn at the top. The linework is thin and black, with light internal detail and no solid shading. The sepia-toned photo is taken close up, with the hand and other fingers softly blurred in the background.

Fine line Hand Anatomical heart Heart Outline Finger

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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

Dear Tom, the tattooist on Sallow Quay has a bad knee and a steady hand, and he would not start the needle until I'd told him what the heart was for. I said it was for the boat, the Marigold, which is nonsense, and he looked at me over his spectacles until I admitted it was for you. He nodded and drew the thing in biro first, so I could see it before it was going nowhere. The great vessels run up out of the top like the rigging on a smack, and he showed me where the blood leaves and where it comes home.

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Mam says it's a daft place for ink, a finger where a ring should go. I told her a ring is only a promise somebody else can take off, and she went quiet and started scrubbing the step again. Mr Ferrier kept the needle clean and talked about his daughter in Hull the whole time, which was a kindness, because the skin along the side of a finger stings worse than you'd think. He used the finest needle he owned and no shading at all. Just black line, the way the old charts were drawn, so it would look like something you could open up and read.

When it was done he asked whether I wanted colour in the chambers. I said no. You always said I was too fond of colour and never fond enough of the plain thing underneath, so I left it bare. Tonight the lamp is lit in the front window and the tide is creeping up the slip. I've sat with my hand flat on the sill and watched the drawing go soft and grey in the wet light. It will fade, he says, in a year or so. Come home before it does.

Love, Nell