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A year of tides, printed

The sea keeps time.

Every high and low water of one year at your shore, computed from the station's own harmonic constants and drawn as fine art.

Choose Your ShoreSee the 61 Stations
The ribbon: twelve rows of Boston Harbor's tide for 2027, hour by hour on parchment, dedicated "For the summers at Nahant"

The Ribbon

Twelve months of water

This is Boston Harbor in 2027: 34 harmonic constants, published by NOAA for station 8443970, summed for every quarter hour of the year. The springs swell twice a month under the full and new moons. The datum is the dashed line. Nothing is smoothed.

Pick a year that matters and a line of your own underneath. The plate names the station, the datum, the highest water of the year and the hour it came.

Draw Your Year

Three drawings of the same water

The ribbon: twelve rows of Boston Harbor's tide for 2027, hour by hour on parchment, dedicated "For the summers at Nahant"

The Ribbon

Hour by hour, month under month. The one to read.

The ring: Honolulu's 2027 tide closed into a circle, sea-blue on ink

The Ring

The year closed into a circle; the spring-neap pulse as a flower of twenty-five petals.

The calendar: every day of San Francisco's 2027 tide with its high and low water times, on white

The Calendar

Every day's curve with its high and low water to the minute. The one to use.

The second plate

Your home waters

NOAA's electronic chart of the water itself, redrawn in the plate's ink: the shore, the soundings in feet, the depth contours, the lights, the station marked. Fifteen kilometres for a harbour, thirty for a bay, sixty for a coast. Under it, the sea floor from the GEBCO grid, laid in as the paper's grain.

Every line is public record, down to the chart cells named in the margin. It is drawn for the wall, not for the helm.

Chart Your Waters
Home waters: NOAA's own chart of Boston Harbor, fifteen kilometres across, with its soundings in feet, its depth contours, its channels and its shore, on parchment

Behind it

Paper, a flag, or the coast itself

White or black paper, parchment, ink, deep water. 29 flags of the states, territories and islands the stations stand in, each file public domain by its own record. Or 36 photographs of the coasts, their surf and their sunsets. You set how much shows through, and which ink the chart is drawn in.

Set the Plate
The ring for Pensacola, 2027, drawn over the flag of Florida under a parchment wash

The piece

Three pieces, each tall or wide. The horizontal poster is the same sheet turned on its side, at the same price: the ribbon runs in two columns of six months, the ring sits in the middle, the harbour chart gets the whole width. What you see below is built from one of our plates as it prints, not drawn by a model.

The archival print, 18 by 24 inches, tall: the ribbon of Boston Harbor's year on parchment, on a plaster wall

Archival Print · 18×24

Giclée on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, pigment inks that outlast the tide table.

$129.00

plus $19.00 shipping · printed to order by Prodigi

The gallery canvas, 24 by 32 inches, tall: the ring of Boston Harbor's year, sea blue on ink, wrapped round the bars, on a plaster wall

Gallery Canvas · 24×32

Hand-stretched over solid bars, the year wrapped round the edge.

$319.00

plus $39.00 shipping · printed to order by Prodigi

The framed print, 24 by 32 inches, tall: the home-waters chart of Boston Harbor on parchment, in a black frame behind glass, on a plaster wall

Framed Print · 24×32

Archival print in a classic wood frame behind shatterproof acrylic. Ready to hang.

$499.00

plus $39.00 shipping · printed to order by Prodigi

On the wall

Where it hangs

Glass above the Pacific and planks beside the break: the same year of water in both, tall over a console and wide over a sofa. The rooms are rendered; the prints are not. Each one is our plate as it leaves us, laid into the picture at the size you would order, lit by the room it hangs in.

  • The ribbon of Boston Harbor's year in a thin black frame above a walnut console with a brass lamp, in a living room of glass above the Pacific

    Framed, Over the Water

    The ribbon of a year in a black frame, hung where the sea is.

  • The ring of Honolulu's year as a gallery canvas above a white linen bed, bedside lamps lit, a dark blue sea in the window

    Canvas, Over the Bed

    The year closed into a ring, on canvas, in the room you wake in.

  • The home-waters chart of Boston Harbor in a natural oak frame above an oak console and a brass bowl of keys, in a limewashed hall

    The Harbour, Framed

    NOAA's own chart of your water in oak, by the door.

  • An unframed print of a year of tides over a surf photograph, pinned with brass pins to the plank wall of a surfer's bungalow beside two longboards

    Pinned, Sand on the Floor

    The year over your own break, four brass pins, no frame.

  • The tide calendar of San Francisco's year in a white frame on the pine wall of a surf cabin, a wetsuit on a hook beside it and a kettle below

    The Calendar, Where You Check It

    Every day's high and low, white frame, by the kettle.

  • A sea-blue ring of the year on black canvas on the grey boards of a beach-shack porch, warm bulbs above and the dark Atlantic behind

    Canvas on the Porch

    Sea blue on black, on the boards, under the bulbs.

  • A wide horizontal home-waters chart pinned above a platform bed with a striped blanket, a shortboard under the window of a surfer's loft

    The Harbour, Wide

    The horizontal chart, pinned over the bed, the break under the window.

Hang Your Year

How it works

  1. 01

    Choose Your Shore

    One of 61 NOAA tide stations, from Eastport to Pago Pago. Pick a year: next year, the year you met, the year the boat was launched.

  2. 02

    Set the Plate

    Three drawings of the same water: the ribbon, the ring, the calendar. Or the chart of the harbour itself, soundings and all. Paper, black, a flag, or the coast behind it. A line of your own underneath.

  3. 03

    Hang It

    Printed to order on Hahnemühle rag, canvas or framed, and shipped from the nearest of Prodigi's print houses. The curve on the wall is the curve at the water.

The arithmetic, the checks against NOAA's own tables, and what a tide table cannot know: how we compute the tide. Every station has its own page: Boston, for one.

What is on the print?

Every high and low tide of one year at one NOAA station, drawn as a ribbon of twelve months, a ring, or a day-by-day calendar with the times printed. The station, the year, the coordinates and the datum are on the plate.

Source: How we compute the tide · checked

Which places can I choose?

61 NOAA tide stations on the US coasts, Alaska, Hawaii, the Pacific islands, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Bermuda. If your shore is not one of them we say so rather than draw a chart from the nearest gauge.

Source: All stations · checked

How accurate is it?

It is the same arithmetic NOAA uses to publish its own tables: the station's harmonic constants summed for every minute of the year. Our highs and lows are checked against NOAA's published predictions in the engine's tests. Weather is not in it; a storm can raise or lower the water by a foot or more on the day.

Source: How we compute the tide · checked

Can I choose a past year?

Yes, any year from 1800 to 2060. The moon and sun are computed exactly for the year you name; the constants and the datum are NOAA's present ones. So a past year is the tide the sky drew at your shore, not a record of what a gauge saw, and before 1983 the sea itself stood a little lower against the land.

Source: Create · checked

What can the chart sit on?

Paper white, parchment, black, ink, or deep water; the flag of the station's state, territory or country; or a photograph of that coast, its surf, or its sunset. You set how much of the picture shows through.

Source: Create · checked

What does it cost?

From $129.00 for the Archival Print · 18×24. Archival Print · 18×24 $129.00; Gallery Canvas · 24×32 $319.00; Framed Print · 24×32 $499.00. Shipping is a flat $19.00 to $39.00 per piece, shown before you pay.

Source: Formats · checked

Who prints it, and how long does it take?

Prodigi, printed to order at the print house nearest you and shipped in a tube or a crate. Most orders arrive within two weeks; a framed piece can take a few days longer.

Source: Refunds and returns · checked

Who makes this?

PaintedApp, LLC, the studio behind Painted Heavens and the rest of the Painted family. Write to support@painted.app.

Source: About · checked