Buy the set or your favorite of these two special 13” x 19” posters printed on 100-lb paper, ready for framing. They come lovingly rolled in a tube for safe travels.

The Trees of Arabella
Maritime illustrator Eli Gafvelin of Sweden (bio below) illustrated this for us. Eli currently works as the ship's carpenter on the Eastindiaman Götheborg, which is about to head off on a big Asian expedition in early June. All of our wood and salvaged materials have come from New England, which this illustrates, and we also show here with a legend of symbols where each wood was used in Arabella.

Arabella’s Rig and Interior
Andrew Guest arranged this poster for us, which incorporates the small tweaks we’ve so far decided upon regarding the gaff-rigged Stormy Petrel, as well as the latest version of the interior layout that Carolyn Corbin drew when she worked with us in summer 2021. Built on William Atkin’s drawings, this poster is something with lots for the eye to discover about things to come as we head toward launch in 2023.

About Eli Gafvelin:

I live on an island in the Stockholm Archipelago where I'm renovating a house, but have been living in Gothenburg since fall to work on getting the ship ready for the Asian expedition.

I am also currently illustrating a book about traditional and historical rope making. I fell in love with ships when I was 20, sailing Götheborg to China, and it's been my life ever since. (I am now 35). I went to boatbuilding school shortly thereafter and have since split my time between working on sailing ships, including the viking ship Draken (now in Mystic, CT), various Swedish ships, and in the US I've been working on the OCF schooners as well as on Kalmar Nyckel. I mostly work on square riggers.

I've been drawing all my life, and though I have no higher education in the arts, it's always been a passion of mine. My medium of choice is comics (or graphic novels if you wanna sound fancy!) as they are, in my opinion, the perfect blend between text and illustrations. I published a graphic novel in 2017 called "Of Love and Tall Ships" (published in Sweden under the name Djupet and self-published in English).

I have nourished a dream of being able to do more maritime illustrations, and therefore I started Sweetwater Illustrations to be able to contribute to the documentation of maritime history, both in Scandinavia and in North America. I dream of being able to do it on a bigger scale, to be able to launch some sort of trans-Atlantic maritime knowledge exchange, and to create beautiful works and documentations of that world with the combination of words and drawings. Besides maritime illustrations and comics I've worked a lot with printmaking, and I also make wooden sculptures of whales.