Black and grey script lettering with two shaded roses and leaves running down the side of a ribcage.

Script lettering with roses on ribs

Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A vertical script word runs down the side of the ribs, with shaded linework and soft grey tones giving the letters a dimensional, ribbon-like look. Two shaded roses with leaves sit above and beside the lettering, and small sparkle motifs sit between the letters. The composition follows the curve of the body, with the design filling most of the frame against a dark background.

Lettering Botanical Ribs Script Lettering Rose Leaves Sparkle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The gilt had already started to skin over when Ada came down the ladder with the sable brush still wet between her teeth, and I told her she had until the church bell to get the S right or we would be repainting the whole fascia of Pargeter's in the morning. She spat out the bristles and laughed at me. She always laughed when she was frightened.

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Her letters were the best in Bristol. I had taught her the thick and thin of a downstroke, how to press the brush down until the hair spread like a fan and lift it off so the line tailed away like a ribbon blown off a hat. Shading was the trick, Ada said, not the lettering itself. Make a word look as if it might lift off the board and it will stop people on the pavement long enough to read it.

Between the words she painted the small star marks the old shopkeepers liked, tiny points that caught the gaslight, and above them two roses she had copied from a seed catalogue with a candle held behind it so the petals showed their shadows. The roses drooped a little, which I told her was wrong. She said roses always droop when someone is looking at them.

When the bell went we stood in the road with our heads back. The name ran down the front of the shop in grey and silver, curling where the light touched it, and the morning carter stopped his horse to read it aloud, slowly, the way you read a thing you mean to remember. Ada took the brush from my hand, wiped it on her apron, and put it in her pocket for the next job.