Close-up of a fine black script tattoo reading persevere along the upper thigh of a person in denim shorts.

Persevere script on a thigh

Lettering · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A close-up of a woman's upper thigh showing the word persevere in thin, black, cursive script. The linework is fine and even, with a long horizontal flourish running beneath the lettering, and the ink is solid black with no colour. The composition is centred on the tattoo, with a hand holding the frayed edge of denim shorts above it and a grey top at the top of the frame.

Lettering Fine line Thigh Script Word Lettering

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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

Mr Haddow never let me hold the brush for the first month. I ground his pigment at the back of the shop on Hallam Road while rain ran off the awning and the Grantham bus hissed past the window. He was seventy and his hands shook when he was cold, but never once when he had a loaded brush in them.

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The word came in a letter from a widow at the end of Mill Lane who wanted it painted on the glass of her late husband's cobbler's shop. Persevere, she had written, underlined twice, with no other instructions. Haddow read it aloud as if it were a price list. "Lettering's easy," he said. "It's the tail that tells you who you are." He showed me how the long stroke had to run from the last letter in one unbroken pull, wrist floating, no stopping to dip. Three attempts went in the bin.

On the fourth morning I got it. The line ran out beneath the word like a fence wire that had decided to go somewhere of its own. Haddow stood behind me smoking and said nothing for a long time. Then he handed me the rag to wipe my fingers.

The widow came in the following week and stood on the pavement with her hand over her mouth. She didn't ask who had done it. She traced the tail with one finger, where it curled under the P, and said, "He always did go on a bit." I went back inside feeling I had got it right without knowing what it was for.