Two forearms: a red heart with a keyhole and small lettering on the left, and a shaded grey ornate key with lettering on the right, both in a realism and neo-traditional style.

Heart with keyhole and ornate key on forearms

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

Two tattoos sit on separate forearms against a teal background. On the left, a red heart with a golden crown-like top and a small keyhole has small lettering above it, in bold colour with simple shading. On the right, a large ornate skeleton key in black and grey has fine, realistic shading on its bow and shaft, with small lettering along the blade.

Realism Neo-trad Forearm Heart Keyhole Key Lettering Crown

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

Tobiah had the oven door open before the bell at St Aldo's struck four, and the heat came out at him like a dog that knew him. The bread was proving on the slab under damp cloths. Only one loaf in the shop was shaped like a heart, and it was not for sale.

Keep reading

His mother had made it every year for the widow at the top of Crane Lane, a loaf with its crust scored into a keyhole. The widow kept her key on a red ribbon, and no one had ever seen her open anything with it. She said the key was for a door that had gone to ash in the fire of her girlhood, and that the heart was for whoever came asking.

The night before she died, Tobiah's mother pressed a cold iron key into his palm and said the little crown on the loaf belonged to the baker, not the bread. He did not understand her. He understood better when the widow's knock came at the back door just before dawn, and she stood on the step holding out a hand with nothing in it.

He gave her the heart loaf still warm. She broke the keyhole crust with her thumb and set the iron key inside the open loaf, where it fitted as if it had been baked there. "Now we are even," she said, and went back up Crane Lane with the bread under her arm while the sky went grey behind her.