Black ink script tattoo on a forearm and a small cross tattoo on the hand of a person in a white line-print t-shirt, cropped at the chin.

Script and cross tattoos on forearm and hand

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close crop from the chin down shows a person in a white t-shirt printed with black line drawings of hands, seated with the hands clasped. Black ink script and several small marks are visible on the forearm and upper arm, and a small black cross sits on the back of one hand near the thumb. The tattoos are small and partly hidden by the pose, and the photograph is in warm, natural light with no colour ink.

Forearm Hand Script Cross

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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

Dear Nell, the new frontage on Fenwick Row is finished and the gilt on the W came out a touch crooked, though Mr Addy swears nobody will notice unless they stand exactly where I stood, which was the gutter, in the rain, with a brush clamped between my teeth. He says a signwriter's mistakes are only mistakes if the customer can read them, and the customer, bless him, cannot read anything before his second pint.

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I have been practising the small hand you taught me, the one meant for headstones and tiny brass plates. Last night I inked a line of it along my own forearm in blue-black so I could check the spacing while I worked, and I set down the three words you said to me on the pier, lettered neat enough to pass a sergeant's inspection. Across the back of my left hand I drew a cross no bigger than a sixpence, so that I never again have to wonder which hand is holding the brush and which is holding the cigarette.

The dance hall on Marlow Street wants its name across the ballroom doors by Friday, and they have asked for hands, of all things, painted either side of the lettering, reaching in as if to pull the crowd through. I told them I would draw them myself. I have spent three evenings at the kitchen table with my own hands flat on the oilcloth, tracing the knuckles, and every hand I drew came out looking like it was waiting for someone to take it.

So I am signing this with the cross, because it is the only mark you will know for certain is mine and not Mr Addy's. The ink will fade off my skin in a month. The gilt on the glass will outlast either of us. Come Saturday and read the window from the gutter, and tell me honestly what you see.

Yours, with the brush still in my teeth, Tom.