Two hands pressed together showing a shaded grey open book tattoo across the back of the hands, with small outlined finger tattoos above.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Open book tattoo across two hands

Realism · Hand · Mixed · Photo

An open book with curled pages is tattooed across the backs of two hands, which are pressed together with the fingers touching. The book is drawn in bold black outlines with soft grey shading that gives the pages volume, and a small patch of yellow ink appears on one of the finger tattoos above it. The composition is centred on the book, with the finger tattoos and the edge of the frame framing it.

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

The ferry from Holyhead had been rocking for an hour when Maud Pritchard opened the atlas on her knees and found the page her grandfather had torn out and folded back in. Someone had written a single line in pencil along the margin: keep the two halves together and the sea will read to you. She did not believe it. She kept reading anyway, because the cabin smelled of diesel and wet wool and the book was the only dry thing she had.

Keep reading

The pages curled at the edges the way paper does after years in a damp coat pocket. Across the water the lights of Dublin came up slowly, a row of coins on black cloth. A woman two seats along was knitting something grey and endless, and a boy kept asking whether the boat was going up or down. Maud turned a page and found a map of a harbour that did not exist, with a little drawn hand pointing at a gap in the breakwater.

She thought of her grandfather's hands spread flat on the kitchen table, the knuckles scarred from thirty winters of rope. He had always pressed them together before he told a story, fingertips touching, as if he were holding a wave still so he could describe it. She pressed her own palms together over the open pages and felt the ferry lift and settle beneath her.

When the engines dropped their note at the harbour mouth, the gap in the breakwater was exactly where the drawing said it would be. Maud closed the atlas, tucked it under her arm, and walked off the boat without once looking at the water.

More like this

Traditional style tattoos of an open book with an eye and an anvil with nails, one on each hand.
Open book and anvil on hands
Two forearms joined by an abstract cubist tattoo of two faces, a wine glass and red script reading happiness is only real when shared, in black, grey and red ink with ochre accents.
Cubist faces across two forearms
Black ink tattoo on a forearm of a stack of books with open pages lifting into a flock of birds, in a sketchy linework and shaded style.
Books turning into birds on a forearm
Black and grey realism tattoo of a tall stack of worn old books with banded spines, placed on the side of the ribs.
Stacked old books on the ribs
Two people's upper arms touch, each with a small colour cartoon tattoo on the upper arm, one figure in a blue beanie and one in a red hat, both with green puffs between them.
Matching cartoon figures on upper arms
Colour tattoo of two hands holding a faceted teardrop gem, drawn with fine hatched shading, on the outer thigh.
Two hands holding a faceted gem on a thigh
Traditional style tattoo of a stack of books with banners reading I'VE LIVED A THOUSAND LIVES, placed on the top of a foot.
Stacked books and banners on a foot
Black ink tattoo of a stack of books topped by a quill pen, placed on the ankle and lower leg.
Stacked books and quill on an ankle
Black linework tattoo of birds rising from an open book in an engraved style with stippled shading, on the upper arm.
Birds rising from an open book
Black and grey engraved-style tattoo on the forearm showing a whale tail rising from the sea, with small figures falling beneath a large dark shape in the sky above.
Whale tail and falling figures on a forearm
Black sketched stack of books with coloured watercolour splashes in pink, green and blue, tattooed on the back of a hand.
Stacked books with watercolour splashes on a hand
Colourful forearm tattoo of stacked books and an open book with sketched birds over rainbow watercolour splashes.
Stacked books and flying pages on a forearm

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.