People ask two questions when they see one of our pieces in person. The first is "is that real?" The second is "how is it made?" This post answers the second one.
It starts as a scene, not a picture
Every piece begins with a moment on the water: an alligator gliding through a still pond, a heron frozen in the shallows, a center-console boat throwing a wake across the bay. We build that moment as a three-dimensional model rather than a flat illustration, because the whole point of the format is depth. The subject sits proud of the surface; the water itself is sculpted into ripples, coils or beams of light that catch whatever light your room has.
That is the difference between 3D printed wall art and a textured-look print. A print can imitate shadows. A relief makes them, and they move as you walk past.
Two colors, no paint
Our pieces are bone white on deep navy, and neither color is painted on. The panel and the subject are printed in those colors, which means there is nothing to chip, fade or peel. It also keeps the pieces clean: navy, white and natural wood, with nothing distressed or weathered about them.
The print
The panels are printed in PLA, a plant-based plastic, on a desktop 3D printer in our St. Petersburg studio. A 12-inch panel takes the better part of a day to print. When it comes off the plate we check the surface, clean up the edges and fit the subject to the water so the two read as one sculpted scene.
The frame
Each panel is mounted in a natural pine shadow-box frame. The frame does two jobs: it gives the relief a shadow line of its own, and it makes the piece read as finished artwork rather than a printed object. A jute rope hanger is fitted to the back, so it hangs from a single nail or hook. The finished piece is 12 × 12 inches, about the size of a record sleeve, and weighs around two pounds.
Made to order, in 1–3 days
We don't keep a warehouse. Each piece is printed and framed after you order it and usually leaves the studio within one to three business days. Because every piece is made individually, small variations in the wood grain and finish are part of it.
The current collection
- Alligator — the piece that went viral on Facebook Marketplace before we had a website.
- Heron — the quietest piece we make, with ripple rings sculpted into the panel.
- Boat Wake — a true miniature boat and its wake, for anyone who lives for a flat morning.
- Anchor — the classic nautical subject, on a field of sculpted rope.
- Spearfishing — a freediver descending through pleated sunbeams.
- Tampa Bay Depth Map — the bay's real underwater contours from NOAA data, made a few miles from the water it shows.
If you have a bay, a lake or a subject in mind that we haven't made yet, ask the studio. New designs are how this collection grows.