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/totem-poles · style · 3 readings

Totem pole art: a stacked pole, a formline raven and a box panel design

Totem poles — A tall carved cedar pole with stacked figures — a raven with a long beak at the top, a bear holding a small human, a whale with its tail curled, a frog at the base — the forms built of ovoids and U-shapes, painted black and red on natural wood, a grey sky behind., carved and painted red cedar, black and red formline, wood grain, weathered

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all 9 samples — three readings, three styles ↓

Reading 1Stacked pole
Reading 2Formline raven
Reading 3Box panel

Formline is the Northwest Coast's own design grammar: ovoids and U-shapes building ravens, bears and whales up a pole or flattened onto a panel. These nine cross a stacked cedar pole, a single formline raven and a bentwood-box panel design, rendered as carved cedar, a clean formline print and a modern colour poster. Ask for a wolf or an eagle instead and the same three styles redraw it.

  • a wall print for a living room or office
  • a housewarming or milestone gift
  • a reference for a carving or tattoo project
  • a study of Northwest Coast design

Frequently asked questions

What size do these print at?
Each image is drawn in portrait format (832×1216) with an even margin — prints clean on A4 held vertically.
Can I use my own subject instead of the three shown?
Yes — the direction field takes your own crest, such as a wolf or an eagle, and the same three styles draw it.
What's the difference between the three styles?
Carved cedar reads like a painted wood carving, with grain and weathering; formline print is a crisp black-and-red serigraph look; modern colour trades the traditional black-and-red palette for blue, ochre and black.
Is this real historical artwork, or new images?
These are new images drawn in the formline design tradition of the Northwest Coast — not reproductions of a specific historical pole or an individual artist's work.

About toile

This page is a showcase and a starting point: nine samples already rendered, three readings of the pack crossed with three styles, each shown at the size and ratio it was made for. Take any of them further on the wall with a few words, or ask for all nine again under your own direction; a sign-in keeps what you make, and it is free while Toile is new. The recipe behind each sample — the subject, the style, the palette, the framing — travels with the image rather than staying private to the render: it is in the alt text of every sample and in the page's own structured data, so a search engine reads the same handles a person would.