The Process Behind Every Hand-Carved Piece

Every piece of Tattsart wall art starts the same way, as a blank block, before it's anything at all. If you've ever wondered what actually happens before a design ends up on your wall, here's the rundown.

You can see the full range over on Tattsart's Wall Art collection, but this article is more about how it gets there in the first place.

It Starts With a Drawing

Before anything gets carved, it gets drawn. Most people assume the carving is where the creativity happens, but really it's the sketch stage that decides everything. The lines, the shading, how bold or fine the detail is that all gets worked out on paper first.

This part isn't rushed. A design might get redrawn a few times before it's actually ready to go onto the wood. If the sketch isn't right, no amount of careful carving is going to fix it later.

Once the design's locked in, it gets transferred onto the block, ready for the next stage.

The Carving Itself

This is the part that takes the longest, and the part machines can't really replicate properly, at least not without losing what makes it look handmade in the first place.

For Wall Art pieces, the design gets carved directly into a panel of MDF. A carving tool cuts away everything that isn't part of the design, line by line, section by section. It's slow work. Rushing it shows, so there's no way to speed this bit up without the final piece looking worse for it.

Because the carving happens directly on the piece that ends up on your wall, no two ever come out the same.

Even carving the same design twice, small differences show up: a slightly different angle on a cut, a bit more or less pressure in one spot. That's not a flaw; it's just what happens when something's actually made by hand instead of printed.

Painting and Inking

Once the carving's done, it gets painted. This isn't a quick coat either; the paint needs to sit properly in the carved lines without bleeding into the areas that should stay clean.

After painting, the piece gets rolled with block printing ink. This is the same basic idea used in traditional printmaking for a long time now; ink gets rolled onto the raised surface of the carving, which helps bring out the contrast and detail in the finished piece.

By this point, you can actually see the design properly for the first time. Before this stage, it's really just a carved block. The ink and paint are what bring it to life.

Prints Work a Bit Differently

Wall Art and Prints often get lumped together, but they're actually made through a different process, worth understanding if you're deciding between the two.

Prints don't come from carving directly into the final piece. Instead, a separate block gets carved first, usually lino or wood, and that block becomes the tool used to make the print.

Once that block exists, it can be inked and pressed onto paper more than once.

That's the real difference. A Wall Art piece is the actual carved object, one of a kind, because the carving is the piece. A Print is something made using a carved block, pressed onto high GSM card stock, which means the same design can be printed more than once from that one block.

Neither one is better than the other; they're just different ways of getting the same style into your hands. If you want a genuine one-off, Wall Art is that. If you want the same look at a more accessible price, Prints are the way in.

You can read more about how to actually choose between the two over in our piece on tattoo-inspired wall art for your home, which goes into styling and choosing a piece for your space specifically.

Why Bother Doing It This Way At All

Honestly, it would be a lot faster to just send a design off to a printer. A lot of what's sold as tattoo-inspired wall art online is exactly that, a digital file, printed in bulk, no carving involved anywhere in the process.

The reason it's done this way instead comes down to the same instinct that shows up in tattooing. A tattoo isn't a printed image either; it's drawn and worked by hand, line by line, and that's part of what makes it feel real rather than mass-produced.

Carving works the same way. It's slower, it takes longer to get good at, and it means every piece carries small signs of actually being made rather than churned out.

There's also something to be said for the process itself mattering, not just the result. Carving takes patience. You can't force it along without it showing in the final piece. That's true of tattooing too; if you rush a line, it looks rushed.

Care Instructions, Since You're Buying Something Handmade

Wall Art pieces are made from MDF, so they're not built for outdoor use or anywhere with a lot of humidity, bathrooms and laundries included. Keep a piece indoors, out of direct sunlight if you can, since sunlight will fade the paint and ink over time, the same way it fades most things.

A soft dry cloth is all you need to keep a piece clean. No sprays, no water, just a gentle wipe down every so often.

What This Means If You're Buying One

If you're picking between a Wall Art piece and a Print, it helps to know what you're actually getting. A Wall Art piece is the original, the actual carved object, and once it sells, that exact piece is gone. If it gets recarved down the track, it'll be close, but never identical, since it's carved by hand each time, not pulled from a saved file.

A Print gives you the same design at a lower cost, because the carved block behind it can produce more than one. Both are handmade, both come from the same process up to a point; they just split off differently once the block exists.

Either way, what you're buying isn't something that came off a production line. It went through drawing, carving, painting, and inking, all done by hand, before it ever got close to being finished.

FAQ

How long does it take to carve one piece?

It varies depending on the size and detail of the design, but carving is genuinely slow work. Simpler designs move faster; more detailed pieces take longer, since rushing the carving shows in the final result.

Why do some designs come back after selling out?

Popular designs sometimes get recarved once stock runs out. Since each carving is done by hand rather than copied from a file, a recarved version will always have small differences from the original.

Is the ink used the same as regular paint?

No. Once a piece is painted, it also gets rolled with block printing ink, which is the same basic technique used in traditional printmaking, rather than a standard decorative paint finish.

Can I get a custom piece carved?

Yes, custom pieces are available. Get in touch directly to enquire about a commission.

Do Prints and Wall Art use the same carving?

Not exactly. Wall Art is carved directly into the final MDF piece. Prints come from a separate lino or wood block, carved first, then used to press the design onto paper.