Close-up of a hand near a mouth showing small fine line tattoos on the fingers, including a crescent moon, an outlined star and dotted bands, in black ink.

Small finger tattoos of a moon, star and dotted bands

Fine line · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A close-up of a hand held near the chin, with small black tattoos on several fingers. The designs include a crescent moon, an outlined star, a thin single line band and dotted bands that wrap around the finger. The ink is black and the linework is fine and simple, with a soft, natural light and a plain grey top in the background.

Fine line Dotwork Hand Moon Star Dot Line Ring Finger tattoo

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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

Wind backed round to the north-west before the kettle had boiled, so I wrote the tide times in pencil along the side of my hand where Ada could read them from the boat. She laughs at me for it every morning. She comes up the steps with the post sack and asks the same question: has the moon been decent to us? I tell her it's a crescent this week, thin as a paring knife, and she says that's the only honest shape it has.

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The dots are the stepping stones across the Scarrow reef at low water. My father counted them with his thumb on every crossing, one dot, one breath, one dot, and the winter he lost his count the post boat went onto the Teeth and we spent a month fishing his boots out of the kelp. I keep the count now. Ada says I count in my sleep, and sometimes I do.

Last night the star over the Fenwick light blinked twice, which it has never done in forty years of logs. I sat on the gallery rail with the book open on my knees and waited for the rest of the sky to answer. It didn't. Ada came up at four with a lamp and said the lens must be filthy, and it was, so I cleaned it with vinegar and newspaper until my fingers smelt of chips. The star stayed exactly where it was.

I drew the crossing on the chart in red this morning, from the slipway to the stack, and wrote beside it in small capitals: go by the dots, not the moon. Ada read it over my shoulder and said I'd finally learned to count.