Fine line and dotwork starburst tattoo in black ink on the inside of a person's ankle, above a grey sock and a dark sneaker.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Starburst tattoo on an ankle

Fine line · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A small black starburst sits on the ankle, built from fine radiating lines that end in tiny dots. The linework is delicate and even, with the lines spreading outwards from a central point to fill a roughly circular shape. The ink is black on pale skin, set against navy trousers, a grey sock and a patterned rug.

Fine line Dotwork Geometric Ankle Starburst Sunburst Star Line Dot

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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

Old Mairi on Skerrin used to say the sun, when it dropped behind Ness Head, went down a long way under the sea and had to be counted home. Every boy who went out in the spring boats was marked by the island woman who could hold a needle steady. She pricked a point on the ankle, then drew out a line for every wave that had to be walked back before the light came.

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Tam Greig was nine when his father rowed out and did not row back. His mother carried him to Mairi's door with a basin of salt water and a clay pipe of ink made from soot and sheep tallow. Mairi asked him how many lines he wanted. He said as many as there were. She laughed and told him that was the wrong answer, because a starburst wanted only as many lines as a boy could carry.

She drew twenty-six, one for each oar stroke she reckoned from the harbour to the rocks, and ended every one in a dot, since a line that ran on forever was a line that lost its way. Tam walked the strand each evening after that, holding his foot up against the horizon. Each time, the tide seemed to come in a little less far up the stones.

Forty years later he still wore the mark, grey now at its edges, and he taught it to the boys who came in with their own bare legs. Each dusk he counted the lines from the middle outwards, and when he reached the last dot he stood and went in to his supper, because by then the sun had come home.