Three photos of fine line tattoos in black ink: the word spark on the ribs, forever young across the upper back, and a small heart on the inner wrist.

Script words and a small heart tattoo

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

This collage shows three close photographs of black fine line tattoos on skin. The top image shows the word spark in flowing script on the side of the ribs, and the middle image shows forever young in thin cursive across the upper back. The bottom image shows a small open heart outline on the inner wrist, set against a dark jacket and a light backdrop.

Fine line Lettering Ribs Back Forearm Script Heart Word

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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 sign-writer's brush had dried stiff overnight, so Walter Hale soaked it in turpentine and swore at the damp creeping under the workshop door. His apprentice, Nell Carrow, sat on the bench with a pot of gold leaf and a list of orders she had not yet dared to read aloud.

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The last job was for the tea merchant at the end of Lantern Pier: three words on a board the length of a rowing boat. SPARK was to go over his new electric urn, FOREVER YOUNG over the hat shop beside it, and a small open heart in the corner of every ticket, which he said was for his wife. Walter wanted the strokes thin enough to vanish from ten yards. He had painted copperplate for forty years and distrusted any word that tried to be a picture.

Nell painted SPARK first, letting the tail of the S run out like a wick. Walter took the brush from her at the F of FOREVER, because his hand was steadier than it had been that winter, and the letters ran across the board like a hem. When the heart came last she was too tired to be careful, and it wobbled, a tiny lamp leaning in the corner of the ticket.

On the pier the next morning the lettering caught the sun off the water. The merchant's wife stood reading the heart for a long while before she went inside. Walter said nothing about the wobble. He had decided, somewhere around the second coat, that a word meant to last was only worth the hand that wasn't quite sure of it.