Black ink blackwork tattoo of a heart-shaped ornamental motif with swirls and dotted chains on a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornamental heart with dotted chains on forearm

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink tattoo of an ornate heart-shaped motif filled with swirls, scrollwork and lace-like pattern, with strings of dotted beads and pointed drops hanging from its lower edge. The linework is bold and solid, with fine dotwork used for the chains and open stippled areas of the design. The tattoo is entirely black and grey on a forearm against a dark background, with the design centred in the frame.

Blackwork Dotwork Forearm Heart Swirl Scrollwork Lace pattern Chain Bead Drop Ornament

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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

Sit closer, the lot of you, and mind the fountain, it bites. You want the tale of the gate at Wrenfold? Then listen. The walled garden had a heart of wrought iron set into its far wall, scrolled and pierced so finely that the light came through it like lace through a bobbin.

Keep reading

Every spring the gardener's girl, Nell Ashby, hung strings of blue glass beads from its lower curl, because the old lady of the house said a gate ought to dress for the weather. The beads chimed when the wind came up off the river, and the pointed drops at their ends tapped against the iron until the bees came over to listen.

One October the gardener died and the gate was locked, and Nell stood outside it all night with her hand pushed through the scrollwork. Nobody could say afterwards whether she was waiting for the key or for the beads to sing. In the morning the chains had crept across the hinges, fine as spider silk, and the lock had rusted open at the very centre of the heart.

So if you go to Wrenfold, don't pull the gate. Put your palm flat to the iron where the swirls meet and wait. You'll feel the beads stir though there's no wind at all, and that, my lambs, is Nell still keeping the door.