Black and grey lettering tattoo on the ribs reading She is clothed with strength dignity and laughs without fear of the future, with fine-line roses and sprigs of leaves below and beside the text.

Scripture lettering and roses on the ribs

Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo on the side of the ribs shows a Bible verse set in mixed lettering styles, including script, block and outlined capitals, with the reference Proverbs 31:25 beneath. Below and to the side are shaded roses with leaves and a small bloom, drawn in fine linework with soft grey shading. The black and grey palette is set against plain skin, and a blind and a tattoo flash sheet appear faintly in the background.

Lettering Botanical Ribs Scripture Lettering Rose Flower Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Margaret, The board went up over the chapel door on Tuesday, though the wind off the pass tried its best to take it down before I'd finished the last stroke. Mrs Pryce wanted the verse in four hands, she said, because one hand is never enough for a woman who has buried two husbands and kept a shop. I told her mixing styles would look like a bar sign. She said the Lord was not particular about fashion.

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So I did the S and the I in plain block, CLOTHED in the swinging script I learned from the old Italian at Leeds, DIGNITY in outlined capitals I'd nearly forgotten how to cut, and FEAR in a heavy slab I'd normally use on a butcher's window. The ampersand I drew three times before it stopped looking like a dropped kettle. Beneath it all I put the reference, small and grey, because Mrs Pryce was adamant it was not to read as a boast.

The roses were her idea. She brought a sheet of flash from her late husband's drawer, a peony and a smaller bloom with the leaves curling like wet paper, and sat on an upturned crate in the drizzle while I laid out the sprig. She corrected my shading twice. I thought her fussy. Then she stood where the board would hang and said the flowers were for the future bit, because roses keep coming back after the frost, and she said it as plainly as she'd tell you the price of eggs.

When I'd finished the last letter, the T in future, I stood back and the whole thing looked crooked against the grey stone. I left it that way. Mrs Pryce said it looked as if the verse was climbing the hill, and I said anyone coming over the pass would have to stop and read it. She paid me in eggs and a bottle of something terrible. I'm posting this with a photograph, so you can see for yourself. Your brother, Dai.