Somewhere between a kitchen counter and the surface of Neptune, I had a very good day at work.
I believe this was for the reboot of The Game at Eagle Rock Studios. The production designer and art director wanted a flashy, ocean-inspired travertine look for a kitchen counter set. They wanted something unique, which meant we actually got to have some fun.
I painted several sample boards, exploring how far I could take the color and movement. There were blues, gray tones, pale mineral bands, and little hits of yellow ochre and raw sienna. Looking at them, I kept thinking about Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. Kitchen counters, apparently, with a small planetary identity crisis.
A whole lot of layers
I tinted the colors myself and built the finish through many layers of glaze. Chip brushes helped establish the broader movement. I used feathers, too, and a squirrel-tail pinstriping brush for some of the finer yellow-ochre and raw-sienna veining.
I also spritzed a little alcohol here and there to break up some of the color. Between stages, I would seal the surface, add more, seal it again, and keep building. Each pass gave me something else to respond to.
The boards show different possibilities within the same idea. Some have stronger blue bands; others lean toward softer gray and cream. Thin, warm veins interrupt the cooler colors. Across the samples, the finish moves between something geological and something almost atmospheric.
From sample board to high gloss
A sample board is a place to work out a finish before committing to the larger surface. It gives everyone something real to look at and gives the scenic artist room to explore. These photographs hold onto that part of the work: boards on paint-covered horses, tools nearby, and several directions being tested.
I shared the whole group because I loved making them. Each version had its own character, and I wanted to remember the experiments as well as the result. The workshop is part of that memory. So are the marks, the shifts in color, and the pleasure of getting a brief that invited a little imagination.
For the finished kitchen counters, I sprayed the high-gloss lacquer myself. Mixing the colors, building the mineral layers, pulling those fine veins, and spraying the final gloss were all part of my work on this finish. I am absolutely going to take a little credit for that.
The sample boards were the exploration; the counters were where the finish came together at scale. I still think a real ocean-travertine counter with this kind of custom color and movement would probably come with a fairly dramatic price tag. Painting it let me chase that feeling through color, glaze, and a lot of patient layering.
Stone with a second life
Now, through Backlot Boutique, a photograph of that hand-painted surface has another life on a notebook cover. The notebook carries a printed reproduction of my original scenic finish. The original boards, and the hands-on work that went into them, are where its story began.
That is the idea behind Set in Stone: a collection that lets these painted finishes travel into everyday objects. A small piece of the work can leave the shop, sit on someone’s desk, and keep being useful.
And if you arrived here by scanning a code on your notebook, welcome behind the finish. This is the surface before it became the thing in your hands.
