Black linework tattoo of scrolling vines, script letters and a red heart with pink and green accents on the inner forearm.

Scrollwork vine with letters and heart on wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows a looping vine with scrolled stems, several decorative letterforms that look like initials, and a solid red heart at the lower centre. A small pink butterfly and green leaves sit among the black outlines, with a few dotted accents. The thin black linework is softly coloured in red, pink and green, and the design is shown straight on against a skin tone background.

Lettering Botanical Forearm Vine Letter Heart Butterfly Leaves Scrollwork

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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

Sit yourself on that crate, the one with the cracked lid, and mind the splinter. No, the big top isn't coming back this year, nor the year after. The canvas went to the rain in Carlisle, and the lions went to a sanctuary in Kent with better teeth than us. What's left is the wagon and the vine.

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See the vine climbing the boards on the side there? My mother's brother painted it in the summer the Pemberton Brothers folded in Leeds, when half the company drifted off to the mills. He had four letters he wanted on it, M, K, A and B, for the four of us who stayed on the road. He never said which letter was for who. He only said the heart went at the bottom, because that's where the roots are, and everything grows up from what's underneath.

Then the autumn rain came, and the paint ran, and the old man swore the letters would wash off before the wood did. He was wrong about that. Look close. The K has gone soft at the edges, and the little pink butterfly has nearly drowned, but the red heart still holds. He mixed it from the cheap stuff the tent-mender used for the striped flags, the stuff that wouldn't fade if you left it in the sun for a century.

So when the weather turns on you, don't go wiping it clean. Let it run down past the letters and see what it leaves behind. Go on, put your hand flat against the heart. It'll still be warm from the afternoon, and that's the only show left in town.