Pen-drawn ornate lettering design on paper with a large decorative initial, swirling flourishes and a cursive script word, shown beside a black fineliner pen.

Ornate flourished lettering design

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

A pen drawing of a decorative lettering design on cream paper, with a large ornamental initial surrounded by curling leaf-like flourishes. The cursive script word sits to the right and is drawn with fine, layered ink lines and some shading. The drawing is in black ink only, and a black fineliner pen lies across the top edge of the sheet.

Lettering Lettering Script Flourish Swirl Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The mistake was in the tail of the capital, a curl that ran one stroke too far and nearly kissed the S, and Ambrose Tull would not let me paint over it. "Leave it," he said, licking the end of his quill. "Customers look at the big letters. Nobody reads the ends."

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We had been three weeks on the sign for Mrs Oddie's tea rooms at the top of Quay Steps. Ambrose drew every flourish first in Indian ink on cartridge paper, pinned to the bench under a jam jar of cold tea, and I was not allowed to touch a brush until my wrist stopped shaking. Each evening he laid the drafts out like hymn sheets and tapped the ones that lied. "Too eager," he'd say. "A leaf should look like it's thinking about falling."

Mrs Oddie came in on the Friday with her hat in both hands and asked for the mistake to come out. Her late husband had worked the ferry, and she had always wanted the swirls to look like water. Ambrose said nothing. He took the smallest sable from the tin, dipped it in vermilion, and while she turned to the window he painted a fish no longer than my thumbnail, nosing out of the curl where the error had been.

The sign went up on the Monday. From the street you saw only gold letters and black scrolling. Only when the afternoon sun came low across the harbour did the little red fish catch the light and seem to swim.