Close crop of a woman's torso in a pale lace bra and satin skirt, showing the fine line script word wholehearted tattooed on the midriff above the waistband.

Wholehearted script on the midriff

Lettering · Other · Black and grey · Photo

The image shows the torso of a woman in a pale lace bra and a light satin garment, with one hand resting near the waist. The tattoo is the single word wholehearted written in a thin, cursive black script across the midriff, above the waistband. The background is a plain pale wall, and the soft, even lighting keeps the ink and the satin clearly visible.

Lettering Fine line Other Word Script

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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 rain has been coming sideways across the market since seven, and by ten the awning over Mrs Okafor's pen stall is sagging under it, so you hold the umbrella over the ledger while she writes price tickets in her slanted copperplate. You are seventeen and sent to learn the trade, which for now means licking envelopes and keeping your fingers off the good nibs.

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She slides a sheet in front of you and tells you to copy one word forty times. Wholehearted. The W comes out right on the first try, then the h loops too wide and the e collapses into a blot. "Thin upstrokes, heavy down," she says, pressing your wrist with two fingers. "The ink does the rest if you let it." You keep at it until the light goes grey and the stallholders start shrouding their tables in plastic sheeting, and the word stops looking like a stranger's.

On the walk home you cut through the car park, where the rain has turned every puddle into a small mirror. The practice sheet in your coat pocket has gone soft at one corner. Under a street lamp you unfold it and find the ink has feathered at the edges, so the word looks less like a drill and more like something someone meant to say.

On Saturday she takes the sheet from your hand without a word, reads it through her reading glasses, and folds it into her apron pocket. "Again tomorrow, then," she says, and sets a fresh pad in front of you. You hold the umbrella steady over it and start with the W.