Fine line black scrollwork monogram tattoo on the forearm, with looping flourishes enclosing stylised letters.

Scrolled monogram on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small black tattoo of ornate scrollwork enclosing stylised letters, set in an oval cluster of curls and loops. The lines are thin and even with a crisp, slightly soft finish, and the ink is a single dark tone with no shading. The design sits centrally on a pale forearm against a blurred green background.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Scrollwork Flourish Swirl Monogram Letter

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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

The rain had worn the chapel lintel at Carrick Hollow down to a rumour of letters, and Mrs Pryce sent for me because nobody else in the valley could read a scroll. I came up the track with my brushes wrapped in oilcloth and a copy of the old drawing folded in my coat, the one Mr Ashdown made before the roof fell in. Two letters, tangled in curls like ivy on a gate, and a loop beneath that might have been a third.

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I worked three days on a ladder with the wind coming through the window arches. Each curl had to be laid down in one pass, thin and even, or it wobbled and looked like a child's hand. The stone was damp and the ink kept spreading, so I learned to breathe out slowly and let the line finish itself. On the second afternoon I found a chisel mark under the paint where the original carver had gone back over a stroke, pressing harder, as if he had been angry or frightened.

Mrs Pryce brought tea up in a dented tin mug and asked me to read the name aloud. I said the letters, and she went very still. The first was her husband's, the second belonged to the girl who had kept the dairy before the fire, and the loop beneath was the mark of a child who never left the valley. She told me to paint it as it was. I did, every curl, and I left the loop open at the bottom, the way it had been cut.

When I climbed down that evening the sun was going behind the ridge and the scrollwork caught it, black lines on pale stone. Mrs Pryce stood below with her hand over her mouth. I packed my brushes in the dusk and left the lamp burning in the chapel for her.