Hand-drawn black lettering design in a sketchbook reading 'Cause I'm as free as a bird now and this bird you cannot change, with decorative letterforms and shading.

Lettering design with a bird lyric

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

A pencil or ink drawing in a open sketchbook shows hand-lettered text in large, decorative letterforms, with the words 'Cause I'm as free as a bird now & this bird you cannot change. Key words such as FREE, BIRD and CHANGE are drawn in bold capitals with inline and shadow details, while the smaller words use lighter, flowing strokes. The design is black on cream paper, with the page filling most of the frame and a notebook edge visible at the top and right.

Lettering Lettering Bird Lyric Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The dance hall at Hollin Pier has finally got its new sign, and you'll be glad to hear I didn't let Mr Pryce talk me into the gold leaf. I did the lettering in black, with the shadows thrown the way you taught me, so every capital stands up off the board like it means to leave. The big words came first. FREE went across the top in a tall flat face, then BIRD, which I gave a bit of a swagger, and CHANGE along the bottom, heavy enough to keep the whole thing from blowing into the sea.

Mrs Odell came down on Thursday to watch me work and said the smaller flowing words looked like someone had been humming while they painted. I told her that was the idea. The cream ground is the colour of the old ballroom curtains, and I think she nearly cried when she saw it, though she'd never say so.

I kept your pencil stub in my apron pocket the whole time. I know you'd say it's bad luck to paint with another man's tools, but it was the only thing I had that hadn't already gone over on the ferry with you. Its point went blunt halfway through the ampersand and I had to sharpen it on the step with my teeth.

Mr Pryce has asked me to do the lettering on the back door as well, so I suppose I'm staying. Come and see it when the band is in. The sign is up above the door where the wind can't get at it, and every time the doors swing open the light runs straight across the words, and I think of you with your bag over your shoulder, saying you'd come back once you'd seen enough sky.

Yours, Ada