Black and grey flash sheet of decorative alphabet letters A to Z, each with floral swirls, and some with small butterflies, in a lettering style.

Decorative alphabet letters A to Z with swirls

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

A flash sheet showing the full alphabet from A to Z, with each capital letter drawn in an ornate serif style and decorated with curling scrollwork, small leaves and flourishes. Some letters, including B, O and R, include small butterfly or floral motifs. The linework is black with grey shading and highlights on the letter bodies, and the letters are arranged in five rows on a white background.

Lettering Botanical Alphabet Letter Swirl Scrollwork Flourishes Butterfly Floral Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The alphabet board for the institute is finished at last, and you would laugh at me for how long I spent on the B. Mr Pryce wanted plain capitals, the sort the schoolmaster uses, but I told him a board for the Miners' Institute ought to look like something a man might want to read twice. So every letter has its scroll, its curl off the stem like smoke off a banked fire, and a leaf or two where the eye wants to rest. The B has a butterfly sat on its bowl. Nobody asked for it. I put it there because Davey Rhys said the boys who go down at six need something lighter than coal to look at over their tea.

Mind, the grey shading nearly finished me. I did each stroke twice, once dark, then a wash of grey, then a white highlight picked out with the tip of a sable no thicker than a hair. The O came out best. I drew a ring for it and filled the middle with a small bloom, its stalk curled round, and when the paint dried it looked like a lamp glass with a flower caught inside.

The trouble came on Thursday, when the cage-man from number three brought his boy to see it. The boy went straight to the R and asked whether the butterfly had flown in from outside or been painted on the wall before the wall was built. I did not know what to say, so I said it was the pit's own idea, and he seemed satisfied with that.

Write soon, and tell me Mam's chest is better. I am sending the last sheet of the alphabet, the Z, which I kept back for the end. It has a little swirl at its foot like a question mark that has forgotten what it was asking.

Love, Tom