Black ink line drawing of a scroll banner reading FAITH, HOPE & LOVE within a handwritten scripture quote from 1 Corinthians 13:13, in a lettering style.

Banner lettering with 1 Corinthians 13:13

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

A black line drawing of a ribbon banner with the words FAITH, HOPE & LOVE in capitals, framed by a handwritten quote from 1 Corinthians 13:13 that reads "And now these three remain" and "But the greatest of these is LOVE". The lettering uses varied thick and thin strokes, with a flourished underline beneath the word LOVE. The composition is centred on a white background with the citation in the lower right corner.

Lettering Banner Scripture Bible verse Faith Hope Love Quote

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The rain has got into the size, and the gold leaf won't lie flat, so Walter sends you under the tarpaulin with a flask of water and tells you to stop fretting over the ribbon. 'Ribbon's easy. Anyone can make a ribbon fold.' You are twenty-two and have been told this three times since March.

Keep reading

The banner is for Pell's Flowers, a stall at the far end of the covered market on Hallam Row, and Mrs Pell wants three words across the middle in capitals, the way her late husband's was. You chalk the curve, then the letters, and the rain keeps tapping the canvas like someone wanting in. Walter's brush moves slower than yours. Every stroke is heavy going down and light coming back up, as if the brush has to breathe.

When the three words are down, you start on the sentence that wraps round them, the bit about what remains. You want to hurry. Walter takes the brush from you, dips it, and writes the last word himself, LOVE, then pulls one looping line beneath it that runs out past the edge of the ribbon and stops nowhere in particular.

'Why does it trail off like that?' you ask. He wipes his fingers on his trousers. 'So nobody reads it as finished.' The rain eases and the stall bulbs come on, and you stand there with wet cuffs, reading the flourish from the back of the canvas, where the paint shows through reversed and still says the same thing.