A set of the finished tiles, laid out on a table, 2014
Kitchen Flower Tiles - A set of the finished tiles, laid out on a table, 2014
Finished Kitchen Flower Tile, 2010
Kitchen Flower Tiles Installed as Backsplash, 2014
Left: Finished Kitchen Flower Tile, 2010
Right: Set of Kitchen Flower Tiles, Installed as Backsplash, 2014
Sketch for Kitchen Flower Tiles, 2000
Sketch for Kitchen Flower Tiles, 2000
Left: Sketch for Kitchen Flower Tiles, 2000
Right: Tracing over a scan of the sketch with Adobe Illustrator, 2006
Tile first color layer
Painting on the glaze
A set of finished tiles
From left: Kilns; starting to paint a tile; painting on the glaze; tiles ready to go into the kiln; and a finished set of tiles
Table set up for drawing on the tiles with pencil, 2013
Table set-up for drawing on the tiles with pencil, 2013
The Kilns, 2009
The Kilns
Kitchen Flower Tile, Digital Art, 2010
Kitchen Flower Tile, Digital Art, 2010
I don't have any training as a ceramic artist, but friends of mine from GALA had a ceramic arts group and I joined them, at first just to hang out and watch them work. I found out you could paint glaze on pre-made white ceramic tiles. I wanted to avoid uniformity of the tiles and preserve the handmade appearance, so I drew the design on each tile by hand with a pencil and a circle template. I then painted each tile with three layers of underglaze and two coats of glaze. It was really relaxing to sit there and paint each tile slowly while listening to my friends talk about the ceramics they were working on. My friends helped me paint the final coat of glaze and fired the tiles for me. It became a running joke in the group at how long this took me. I started the project in 2005 and I hadn't finished enough tiles for the backsplash until 2014.
