Mr. Fischer has painted the surface with a faded pale blue hue, a gradient of color he distilled from a landscape photograph using Photoshop, a computer program he employs in much of his work.
When they are painted onto a surface, this arrangement forces them into a kind of checkerboard pattern which makes it much harder for barnacles and mussels to stick, according to David Williams, who is in charge of commercialising the idea at AkzoNobel, a multinational chemical company.
Attempting to achieve the enamel-like surface of early Renaissance panel painting, they painted on smooth panels or on fine-woven canvas rigidly stretched.