Arts and Crafts Tile

I've been busy this week sculpting various 4"x4" tiles, including a completely new Rooster design. The Honey Bee was already available as a 2"x2" tile and I am re-sizing it. I am also working on enlarging one of my cat tiles, but it is not ready for the public eye. The rooster and bee, however, are almost finished:  I am going to fiddle with the wings and feathers a bit more, and then make molds. The mold making process will destroy the original proofs, but that is ok because with the finished molds I can make hundreds of reproductions of...

Seeing customer installation pictures never fails to make me happy, so getting these photos from Nan S. was quite a treat. She has a stairway in her home, and she wanted to increase the visual impact of this transitional space with tiles. She achieved her goal brilliantly, but not in the way you might expect. Instead of tiling the stair treads and risers, she tiled the walls and ceiling of the stairwell. And lucky for me, she took lots of pictures: The view up the stairs. Art tiles are 6"x6" Tree of Life and 4"x4" Acorn The upper wall and...

The new heron tile I have been working on is ready at last. It is pictured here alongside my original heron tile. Both are shown glazed in Watercolor Blue. As you can see, the new tile is a mirror image of the original, so now you can order two heron tiles that face each other in my online store.  A pair of these would look great installed on opposite sides of a fireplace; or maybe over a kitchen stove along with some cattail or cypress tiles. There are lots of possibilities & I look forward to seeing what ideas people come up with...

If it is wrong to love a kitchen, then I don't want to be right. Because I love this kitchen. How could I not? The cabinets, counters and floor have a limited color palette, clean lines, and not too much ornamentation. This simplicity really sets off the fun, multi-colored art tiles.  The high gloss, black granite counters create a mirror effect, further emphasizing the tiles. I made the patterned, relief tiles, the field tiles are by a different manufacturer- if I find out which one, I will give them credit here. Thanks to Susan Hall, of One Source Design, for...

...it would have been WAY faster to convert seven of my most popular 4"x4" tile designs to the 2"x2" size. But it would have been way less fun, so it is probably for the best that there is no such thing as a shrink ray. If you aren't familiar with my work, these tiles I just finished sculpting probably won't look all that small to you. But to me, they look amazingly, adorably tiny. Like fun sized candy bars. I have been making most these designs for several years in the 4"x4" size, so they feel like old friends. It...

Remember the new mold I made earlier this month?  The first set of tiles I made from it is out of the kiln! It is a set of four 4"x4" tiles that fit together to form a pattern that is about 8"x8" square, shown in autumn glaze.  I have added to the online store here and here. The design is based on the 3"x3" tile, "geometric blossom", and I think the larger and smaller versions would combine well.  In a kitchen, the 8"x8" version could go over the range or in another prominent spot, and the 3"x3" could be peppered...

Thursday night, I sculpted a new tile.  Yesterday I made a plaster cast of that tile so I will be able to reproduce the new design. Once the plaster dries, I will be able to pack this full of clay and reproduce the original again and again.  You may be wondering what the design on the tile is.  It kinda looks like an abstract, art deco heart.  But that isn't what I had in mind.  Thanks to Photoshop, you can see what a set of four of them together will look like: It is going to be a four tile...

Geometric #1 has been a popular tile lately, so I have a fair number of them drying in the studio at the moment.  I think they look pretty together.  They are different colors because the clay isn't completely dry yet.