Hand-drawn ornate lettering design reading out of the ashes we rise, in black ink on grid paper, with no placement on the body shown.

Out of the ashes we rise lettering design

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

The image shows a hand-drawn lettering design with the words OUT OF THE ASHES WE RISE arranged in a tight diamond shape. The letters use bold strokes with flourished swashes, curls and loops extending from the ends of the letterforms. The design is drawn in black pen on squared grid paper, with a black pen lying across the lower right corner.

Lettering Quote

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mr Okafor wanted the words above the bakery door by Friday, and he wanted them big enough to read from the bus stop. Nell had the squared paper spread across the trestle since seven, counting boxes the way her grandfather taught her, one box for every stroke of the nib. The fire had taken the roof and most of the flour sacks, but the brick front stood, scorched the colour of tea, and that was what he kept touching as he talked.

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She drew the phrase in a diamond because the gable above the door was a diamond too, a kite of blackened brick with the old date stone set in its middle. Every letter had to lean toward the next. The O of OUT wanted a loop, and the tail of the S in ASHES had to curl back under the H so the eye could walk through it. Her grandfather's rule was that no swash may touch another letter unless it means to. By lunchtime she had broken that rule twice and torn up two sheets.

By four the pen was running dry, and she had reached the last E of WE RISE, the one whose spur kept sliding into the R. The spare biro was the wrong weight, so she traced the final flourish in pencil and felt faintly ashamed of it. Mr Okafor came back with two teas and studied the paper for a long time without speaking.

He pointed at the sweep under the E and said she should leave that one alone. She did, and set the pen down across the corner of the grid, where it stayed.