Black and grey brush script reading Be Authentic on a plain white background, shown as a lettering design rather than on skin.

Be Authentic brush lettering design

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

The image shows the words Be Authentic written in loose, hand-painted brush script in dark grey and black. The strokes vary in thickness and fade slightly towards the end of the word Authentic. The phrase sits centrally on a plain white background with no other elements.

Lettering Script Quote

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the board went up over the door at Harbour Street this morning, the one you were so anxious about. Two words in black, painted at last. Be Authentic. Customers have already stopped on the pavement to read it, which is more than I can say for the last sign-writer's effort in that spot.

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You wrote that Mr Pell wants the letters perfect, like the printed bills from the works in town. I told him no. I loaded the brush with lamp black, cut it with a little water, and let every stroke run out at the end of the word, because a brush runs dry when you are honest with it. The B is heavy where I pressed down, the e is thin where I was hurrying to beat the dinner bell, and the tail of the final c barely made it across the board before the paint gave out.

Pell came in with a face like vinegar and asked why Authentic goes grey at the end. I said the paint was never going to be the same all the way across. He called that a fault. I said it was the only true thing on the board. Each letter was done once, by one hand, on one afternoon, and it could not pretend to be anything else.

He paid me in full and did not mention perfection again. Come Saturday and look at it yourself. Stand where the street light hits the glass, and you will see the word fade out just as the wet paint did. Your loving aunt, Ada.