Leo Lakes Treasured Maps 9 years in business

Not many businesses last nine years, but I have. October 2007, I started Old Field Studio. In the beginning, Old Field Studio was focused only on wildlife art, mostly waterfowl. I painted in acrylics on Masonite Art Board. My art had a blurred background, which was done with an airbrush. This gave the picture a 3-D look.

Folks enjoyed my wildlife art, but I discovered that the market was over saturated with wildlife art. During this time, I wanted a decor map of a river that I grew up on as a kid. After some research, I found that nice decor maps of waterways didn’t exist. There were navigation, road, and topography maps, but not a really nice, vintage style lake, river or bay map that would look great hanging in a home or office. 


Luckily, with my artistic talent and creativity, I decided to paint my own map of that treasured river. I experimented with different colors and styles to finally settle on a vintage style that gave the painting a golden look. I added a few symbols such as the ruby meridian, wildlife and vintage plane.  


Once completed, I found that others liked the map so much that they asked for copies. This gave me the idea to paint additional rivers, lakes and bays for others to treasure their favorite waters. After a year and a half of experimenting, Leo Lakes Treasured Maps was born, which is part of Old Field Studio. It's hard to believe that its been nine years and I'm still in business. That's pretty much the story of Old Field Studio in a nutshell.

I try to make the maps as much "a piece of art" as they are a map. In fact, my large maps (16x32 and over) are numbered and come with a Certificate of Authenticity, which also includes a letter that details some other neat things about the map, such as the 'tiny hidden mermaid." Interestingly, I have sold over one thousand maps ranging in size from 10in x 20in  to 4ft x 8ft. Believe it or not, I have kept the purchase information (Who, When, Map, etc..) for all those purchases.Check-out my website LeoLakes.com