A short line of black script lettering across the inner wrist of a hand with green painted nails.

Black script lettering across the wrist

Lettering · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A short line of black script lettering runs diagonally across the inner wrist. The letters have clean, even linework with simple black shading and no added colour. The hand is photographed at an angle against a warm, slightly out-of-focus background, with the lettering as the main focus.

Find an artist for this

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

You learn the lettering on the cabin side of the Mary Ellen before you learn to steer her. Old Tam Rennie stands over you with a squirrel-hair brush and a tin of gloss gone tacky at the lid, telling you the curve of the capital A must look like it is leaning into a wind that isn't there. Your first attempt on a spare plank in the boatyard comes out looking like a garden fence. He wipes it off with his thumb and says, again.

Keep reading

By October you can do the whole line in one breath, the loops of the letters tight and even as stitching. The words are not a name, he says, not really. They are what a boat says to the water so the water knows what to expect. He won't translate them. You have asked twice, and both times he has looked past you at the towpath. You'll understand when she's been down the locks in February, he says, and you assume he means the cold.

In the first hard frost the Mary Ellen goes down at her moorings with the ice on her roof. When the hoist finally lifts her out, you climb under the hull with a torch and find the same line painted on the bilge, where nobody has ever looked. Tam's hand, the same loops, a date from before you were born. Below it, in ink that has not yet faded, is a second line in your own careful strokes, and you don't remember him ever asking you to write it.

More like this

Black script tattoo reading Allons-y across the top of a foot, with purple painted toenails visible below.
Allons-y script on the top of a foot
Fine line black script lettering arranged in the shape of a cross on the inner wrist, shown with the palm facing up.
Script cross on inner wrist
Fine line black script reading no fear on the inner wrist of a palm-up hand.
No fear script on the wrist
Close-up of a fine line black script tattoo reading immeasurably more across the inner forearm, on a light skin tone.
Immeasurably more script on a forearm
Small black fine line Scorpio zodiac symbol tattooed on the inside of a wrist, with dark painted nails visible above it.
Scorpio zodiac symbol on the wrist
Fine line black tattoo of the scorpio zodiac symbol on the inner wrist, with the palm of the hand raised towards the camera.
Small scorpio zodiac symbol on the inner wrist
Fine line black tattoo of a city skyline with a tower, a Ferris wheel, a palm tree and a heart, placed on the ribs.
City skyline outline on the ribs
Close photo of a small fine line cursive script lettering tattoo in black ink on the inner wrist, with a clenched hand and pale nails above it.
Small cursive script on an inner wrist
Fine line black tattoo of a heartbeat trace ending in an outlined heart, on the inside of a wrist.
Heartbeat line with heart on a wrist
Close-up of a fine-line black script tattoo reading love is enough in cursive on a forearm.
Love is enough script on an arm
Black and white photo of a fine line script tattoo reading be still with a small cross, on the inner wrist.
Be still script tattoo on the wrist
Fine black script Roman numerals IX, XVI and XI tattooed on the inner wrist of a hand held up against a dark background.
Small Roman numerals on an inner wrist

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.