The tatoo on his shoulder

What was it. Got the heart on his wrist "heart on his sleeve" but could not figure out what was on his shoulder

Unlike the "heart on his sleeve" tattoo, the shoulder tattoo isn't a fake one for the movie but is in fact one of Gosling's real tattoos. I'm in no way an expert on Gosling (never mind his tattoos), but I understand this is quite unusual, because he normally has his real tattoos covered up in movies.

His shoulder tattoo is of the cover of the children's book "The Giving Tree".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Tree
Apparently, comments he's made in interviews suggest he's not really that keen on the story itself, so it's been suggested that the tattoo has more to do with memories of his mother reading it to him and his sister.

Gosling actually has three fake tattoos in Blue Valentine:
The first is the "heart on his sleeve" one that you refer to, on his inner left forearm.
The second is a woman's face (almost certainly that of Williams/Cindy) on his inner right forearm.
The third appears to be a hand (Frankie's?) on his left chest (i.e. above his heart).

The fan blog "Ryan Gosling Addicted" covers his real and fake tattoos pretty well:
http://ryangoslingaddicted.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-gos-tattooed.html
http://ryangoslingaddicted.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/ryan-gosling-and-temporary-tattoos-1.html

--
"So I've got bullets, but no gun. That's quite Zen."

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