Celadon Fish Tiles

Experimental tiles done with fish impressions. The impressions are concave, made from convex bisque molds and celadon glaze.

I like the look of the celadon with the impressions.

Worth pursuing in a more controlled, larger set of tiles, I think.

Prophetic Tile

About 7+ years ago, I made this tile in a workshop.

The workshop focused on drawing with underglazes on pre-bisqued tiles. I had never tried this before and had no expectations going in about subject matter or technique.

After a short demo, we were handed the tile, given access to colors and told the "draw something".

I was stymied. My mind went blank. I couldn't think of one thing to draw. None of my lexicon of images or designs floated to the surface of my mind so I just began to doodle directly on the tile. I laid down a square. I added lines on the diagonal. Then I began to draw a landscape in the square and drew two snakes.

All totally out of character to what I usually did.

Years later. Guess where I am. In the desert, looking at landscapes like this one. Surrounded by these colors but, thankfully, so far---no green snakes.

The Master Bath Shower Pad

I made and installed this mosaic when we put the addition on for the master bedroom.

Before the shower enclosure was tiled and finished, this was the beginning of the fish motif idea. The design thought here is as if you are looking down into a fish pool.

The fish are shown from a top view. milling around. A few round sea urchins are thrown in. The tile photographs with is variation in the color, but in real life, the range of color is less than it appears here. Even though these pieces are the same clay, the same glaze and fired in the same kiln, the subtle variations are very pleasing.

I didn't want anything that would overshadow the future floor (We installed carpet in the bath as a stop-gap. Bad Mistake.)

I wanted something that would have enough texture to not become slick with water.

When we did select the tile for the floor, both the grey-ish border and the cream field tile went well with the variations in the handmade tile.

Table Tiles

This is a table top interlocking tile project made to fit an antique D-leaf table. The glaze resilts were a bit of a surprise, but you can see my continued fascination with wings, flying etc. in the pattern. The glaze was a matt white applied onto a light clay in thick strokes to give the impression of feathers without being too uneven to support hot dishes.

Each tile was backed with a solid piece of dark green felt much like the kind of backing found on table pads.

The Tile Project that Wouldn't Die IV

I'm having trouble yet again getting back into the studio and into the unbroken time of thinking and working. I never seem to be able to get away from the house.

There are so many decisions that have to be made and problems that crop up daily. It's impossible to just nip out to the studio and do some work.

To Whit:

We're still working on the bathroom tile project. One bath is finished and I am refreshing the wall paint and re-caulking the tub. It's the only available bathroom on the ground floor and it's pretty crowded at the moment.

You see, our house was built by a Swedish emigrant who made his living there painting interior room decorations in houses and churches. There are some of his work still in existence in the house today. Come to think of it, this house has had three owners and all three have been artists. humm, interesting.

Thanks to a visit some years ago from a couple of nice little old ladies who used to visit their Uncle Sven (I don't really know his name) when they were little girls, I found out that once, the back wall of the basement held a painting of about 8' X 15' of "Dewey's Entrance into Tokyo Bay". And on the floor, now concealed by many layers of concrete paint, was a rendition of an oriental rug. (Red paint keeps re-appearing each time the current paint gets nicked.) Too bad the previous owner didn't like it.

I wasn't too crazy about this linen closet door, but the thing has grown on me. I just don't have the heart to paint over another artist's work. We also inherited many indoor decorated shutters which are now living in the barn, but that's another story entirely.



But back to the current house project: The Tile renovation had expanded to redoing the floor of the hallway powder room/bath. The original floor was ancient linoleum. So ancient that it was the marbleized, swirly green malachite-looking stuff . I hadn't seen a floor like that since I was a child. (And incidentally, the very same lovely stuff was the surface for the kitchen counter! Ugh! The countertop was complimented by a Pink (PINK!) kitchen sink. The first thing we did was install a steel sink and I tiled the countertop.)

Today, we have a new, lovely grey-ish porcelain tile floor that makes the room great. The original owner/builder decorated the walls with painted sailboats that look to me like in the style of the 1920s or 30s art. When we re-did the windows, we carefully protected the work and now I have to refresh the paint in the mural to match the new coat of paint needed for the walls. I'm experimenting with the use of friskit to block the fine lines and to preserve the coral paint. I Really don't want to redo that part of the walls just yet. You can see where I have tried to do an overpainting of one boat hull and it didn't work too well. I've since found a much better match for the original color.


Ignore the mess on the shelf. It's my catch-all place since we had to abandon the master bath.































I love that old florescent chrome lighting fixture. As well as the old iron tub spigot. They are vintage for the house--sometime around the early 1940s. I have the old mirror out of the frame. The wall under the fiber board is solid pine planking.




Would you believe I walked into an antique store and found these two metal bookends? And did I have to buy them? You bet! I didn't care what they cost. Turns out they were very cheap.

Tiles, Tiles, Tiles, Continued

Okay,

I've thought about this hanging tiles stuff a bit........Think I'll mark off the walls into 1/4 sections with an elongated vertical mark for each quarter, then lay out the tiles, measure them the same way and mark them off in vertical lines at 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 bits. That way, I can align the verticals and hang the tiles in segments without biting off too much at a time, and keep the spacing uniform from one end to the other.

Takes a while for these ideas to fester......

How do you ponder problems? Do you grab a piece of paper and start drawing? Do you work it out in dialogue with yourself? Sometimes I sorta' open up a space and hang a sign on it saying, "This space open and reserved" and go about my business for a while. Pretty soon, like a Magic 8-Ball, something floats up.

Same goes for finding lost objects. Another way to find lost things is to go to bed at night and say, "Okay, I will wake up tomorrow and know where the lost thing is." Then you sub-conscious , which watches you all the darn time but never says a Word when you try to find something, will whisper in your ear while you sleep.


It's just fascinating to me how people think. A lot of my thinking is in pictures. When I was teaching art, one of the first things I would ask my students is, "How many of you can visualize a cube in your mind?"

Kids would raise their hands.

"How many of you can see that cube as if it were transparent; made out of glass?"

Less hands.

"Now, how many of you can tumble that cube end-over-end in your mind?"

Even less or no hands up at all.


Update: I've just discovered that I can buy the webbing that comes as a mosaic tile backing. It is webbing attached to a contact-like paper that can be glued onto the back of tiles, then the paper peeled off to leave just the webbing so that the tiles are all linked together. 'Way better than trying to thin-set each tile to the wall. Now I have to figure out just how to do this.

Think I'll start by tracing each tile out onto a large sheet of paper--taped together paper grocery bags should do it--cut that out in one long wall-strip and see how well it fits. If I divide that into fourths, I will know how much spacing I will need.

I COULD lay out the tiles and when I got the width right, take the very wide transparent Scotch tape and stick it in strips onto the face of the tile. I could cut intervals apart with an Exacto knife, hang the tile and then peel off the tape when it is set.

Tiles, Tiles, Tiles!

The Tiles are Fired!


Everything came out beautifully; no warps, no breaks,

.......ah.......well,

just one little glitch.

You knew there had to be a glitch, didn't you? I mean, the gods just can't let things be perfect, now can they? Otherwise, we'd just get tooooo cocky.

One of the witness cones just ever-so-gently leaned over and kissed the edge of a tile. I looked at it and thought, "Right. All I have to do is try to lift that off and the whole tile will give up a hunk of clay."














How do you make a replacement for a piece that fits like a jig-saw puzzle? I shiver to think of it.

A light tap brought the cone away. The glaze was a tad disturbed, but a bit of grinding will put it right.

This picture doesn't show how the finished product will be. This is all the pieces laid out to make sure everything is there and I didn't leave one piece laying on the slab roller waiting to be loaded in the kiln. (Oh, stop my beating heart!)

A running band will be fitted onto a wall to encircle the shower stall. The big hole in shown here in one band is the location of the shower control fitting.

In a moment of total paranoia, I made 'spacer tiles' just in case. They are small rectangular tiles the vertical measurement of the band but made in three sets in varying widths of 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch and one inch. They're designed to be inserted next to the door mounts should the frieze band be too short in length. I marked them with my signature stamp and the date. Don't think they will be need though.

Next question: How do you mount these kinds of tiles on a vertical wall? Do you start at one side wall and stick them into thin-set holding them up until they 'take' then move on to the next tile hoping the grout allowances will come out okay on the other end? I think I'll try outlining them with a black marker to see how well they'll fit, then use that as a guide.

The estimate of the shrinkage came out just fine. Fitted tightly together as it is shown in the photo, the tiles on the narrower walls come out 2 1/4 inches shorter than the wall measurement. The larger wall came out 4 inches smaller. This should allow for grout lines of about 1/4 inch or less between tiles.

An interesting side note here: The next time I do this. (Insert derisive snort here) I will make each tile approximately the same size as the next because the larger tiles that go from the top to the bottom of the band, the full width of the design, came out just ever so slightly smaller than the ones that had one cut or more somewhere intersecting the width, therefore calling for more than one groutline and widening the entire width. In other words, if there are to be horizontal cuts in the design, there had better be corresponding horizontal cuts on the next tile and so on, so that the expansion of the width of the sections will be equal. When I mount this set of tiles, I will have to fudge the placement to make up for the space taken up by grout.

I've decided that the fudge factor will have to be more at the bottom of the frieze than at the top. At the top it would be much more obvious.

And, for all of the stuff above, the grout had jolly well be close to the color of the tiles so the fudge factor won't be as obvious.

If I ever, ever agree to do this again, please have me committed.

Soap Dish

I've been kicking around some ideas for soap dishes. I'd like to mount one in the corner of the shower below the water source, yet high enough that it will not get that soap jelly in the bottom of the dish. It is sort of folded down at the sides and dished up in the center.

The shell shape shown actually has areas on the sides that drains water away, yet keeps it far enough away from the walls avoid soap scum running down the wall tiles. (Difficult to see in this shot.)

I have another fish-shaped dish that has the head and tail of the fish lower than the body, but after firing it to bisque, I decided it would be too small.

Firing Update

Firing completed. All tiles came out perfectly. Now to waxing the bottoms, a glaze dip and the final firing. Yea!

I'm firing a second bisque load now with glaze tests to decide on which glaze to use. The tile guy comes tomorrow. He was sick all last week which gave me some wiggle room.

In celebration (Not of the tile guy's being sick, but of the successful firing), I had the last piece of lemon pie with strawberries. I'd show a picture of it, but it's all gone now.

Actually, it's the extra pie that I stuck into the freezer after everybody left following the Fourth of July. Didn't know it for sure at the time, but it freezes really well. This pie is about the easiest, simplest pie Ever, hands down, bar none, tampoco:

EASY LEMON PIE

1 Graham cracker prepared crust
1 can Eagle Brand Sweetened condensed mink (14 oz.)
3 medium egg yolks
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (ca. 2 lemons)

Mix lemon juice with egg yolks using a wire whip. Add condensed milk and blend well. Pour into the prepared crust. (Turn down the aluminum edge to protect the crust from too much heat. And of course, unfold the rim for serving!)
(Save the clear plastic lid so you can put it back over the pie for storage in the refrigerator or to seal it up for for freezing. Crimp the rim back over the plastic lid edge.)

Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes. Check and rotate the pie. Bake about 20 minutes more. Pie should be lightly brown. To test for doneness, insert the tip of a knife into the center. If it comes out cleanly, the pie is done. This is a very rich pie, so smaller slices are in order.

Serve hot, cooled or frozen. Great with strawberries.

The entire shower enclosure tiles are in the kiln s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y firing to bisque stage.

Um, these are not my fingers. Note the long fingernails and the absence of clay, flaky dry skin and wimpy muscle tone.

Feh! No self-respecting potter would ever let their hands get into this condition.

More about the Shower/Laundry/Bath addition

Um, after proofing the previous post, I realized that my description of the laundry lay-out was not that clear.

We added on a master bedroom, bath, laundry and walk-in closet. And the closet is laid out like a long hallway and we use it like that. It opens to the laundry at one end, runs along the outside wall of the house with high, square windows which we can open for ventilation. The other side of the wall is the entry deck, covered with a long glass porch roof leading to the front door. So even if it's raining, we can still keep the windows open for fresh air. It makes the closet bright, airy and light. I hate closets that are closed, dark and musty.

The opposite closet windowed wall, there are fold-out mirrored doors set between square columns. The whole closet is 18 feet long. We can go through the closet doors to the laundry area, turn the corner and walk into the bathroom. The bathroom has two doors that open into the bedroom. The toilet area is separate from the sinks, tub and shower area. So the traffic pattern in the addition is full circle. I like that.

Opposite the closet doors on the other side of the bedroom, double French doors and 3 windows open out to a side-yard deck.

The infamous shower stall. The tiles are in the kiln taking FOREVER to get to bone dry. Everything is flat, whole, and laid out on the shelves in one layer. I even remembered to make some small tiles on both edges of the fish band with my signature and date on them.

A tile contractor is coming today to start laying the floor in a smaller bathroom and hopefully, the shower tiles will be fired, glazed and ready when he gets to the master bath floor/tub surround/ shower phase.

Think I'll just nip out to the studio and program the kiln for Oh, say 90 degrees for a few hours..............

The Tile Project that Wouldn't Die III, Addendum

When I designed the addition and the bath, I wanted a shower that I could open the door, stick my hand in and turn the water control, feel the temperature of the water and THEN get in. Revolutionary, huh? It means the shower head and the control had to be on opposite walls. It only takes a bit more piping of the up-and-over kind to do this and it's SO much nicer. I really don't know why they aren't just made that way.

Just like the laundry room BELONGS between the bathroom: The location of the manufacture of dirty clothes. And the closet: The location of clean clothes. In our addition, the dirty-clothes-to-clean-clothes system is laid out in an L shape with one leg the bath, the other leg the closet with the laundry at the corner. I'm still amazed to find laundries in garages--what's with that? Or it's stuck away in basements. If I ever do another renovation or build a house, it's gonna have the laundry IN the closet!! Right next to the bath!! Upstairs!!

Hurrumph

Back to my main subject.

Beside the water control arrangement, the shower has two windows. We have a wonderful view and I thought it would be really nice to enjoy it while standing there being pounded by water. I asked my builder to put the windows in the corner. Now, you're thinking, 'Huh, that's dumb. They'll fog up right away." Nope. One window opens to let the steam out.

So the day came to frame the shower walls and I was away from the house on errands. When I came back, I went in to see how things were going. I stepped into the shower.

"RANDY!!" I yelled.

"You're back. What'cha think?" he said.

"What am I looking at?"

Randy said, "Uh,Wall".

Now, I'm 5 feet tall and my builder is well over 6 feet. The windows were 'way over my head.

The Tile Project that Wouldn't Die III

So, this is beginning of the (hopefully) last edition of the fish tile shower project.

This time, I'm making a wrap-around band of fish with a free flowing-design. And, the guy who is installing my new floor and tub surround has agreed to mount my band-o-fish tile too. Whew!

This is the corner of the east wall with the design impressed and the grout lines cut out.

When the tile is installed the grout lines will disappear. At least theoretically. At this point, I'm not doing a lot of predicting. The tiles will be almond/white and the grout will be white also, so it should blend well.

First, I roll out a long slab of clay, much larger than the planned finished piece and I carefully transfer it to a sheet of scrap drywall or plaster board. I try to handle the clay as little as possible to avoid warping. (Notice the edges of the drywall have been duct-taped to keep any plaster away from the clay.)

I measure the bottom of the slab using a steel ruler that has the inch measurements right out to the end--some yardsticks have a 1/4 inch 'fudge' at the end. I cut the whole length of the bottom. Then, using a large see-through architect's plastic triangle, true up the end at a right angle. (A carpenter's steel square works well too.) I use a transparent ruler to measure the width and cut the top of the tile strip.

I press the pattern into the clay using the fish molds and smooth up the design. Since this distorts the clay, I re-measure and re-cut the strip to size. I do a lot of smoothing of the top and bottom edges with my fingers.

I put another scrap of drywall on top the strip and weight it down with big bleach bottles filled with water. (This is the small section of tile under the weights.) No warping allowed!

Usually, I flip tiles every few days so they will dry evenly under pressure. This helps avoid cracking and warping. I can't flip these tiles because the impression design is so pronounced that they wouldn't lay flat.

One serious crack and I have to start over.

The grout lines are not cut until the clay is set up more. I look at the design and plot out the cuts thinking about flow of lines, how to avoid sharp joins or corners and think about the strength of the cut tiles. I lightly mark the clay with a sharp pencil and, using a fettling knife held vertically, cut the tiles out after the clay is set up to slightly softer than leather hard. If the clay gets too hard, the cutting knife will drag and make ragged edges. I leave the whole piece alone until it is easy to gently separate the individual pieces. I separate them, smooth the edges out and let them dry more.

All the tile must get to bone dry before firing. I will fire them flat on the kiln shelf with alumina underneath to allow them to float on the shelf. That's another good trick to avoid cracking.

The south wall is a bit longer than any of my drywall, so I had to figure out how to break the design without running into obvious join problems. So, I decided it should be off-center and about a 1/4th section and a 3/4 section to further avoid an obvious join.

I cut the two at an angle and here, the photo shows lining up the two sections to check design continuity. I decided on a 45 degree angle for the join so that I could be sure of a match-up.

The Tile Project that Wouldn't Die II

So how did this fish tiles thing happen in the first place? Ah, it is a long and winding road, my friend.

First of all, I'm not a stranger to laying tile in houses. Several years ago, I got very serious about this and took a class from an expert. My first project was a full bathtub surround with a few custom-glazed tile pieces inset into the pattern. Then I laid a kitchen floor/access area to a deck; about a 9 x 12 floor. I made and matched the glaze of a 1950s kitchen floor for a builder. No small feat, that. Next, I did a counter-top, then a free-flowing designed shower pad and a utility room floor. (My tile man raved about this and kept saying, "You did this? You did this?") And I've tiled the infamous shower stall half-way up to befuddlement.

But I digress. My initial thought for the overall design was to make bas-relief tiles using a full fish mold of plaster. So I made this. In the photo it appears to be an 'outtie', but it's an 'innie'.

And the cigar in the fish's mouth? That's added clay the stands above the height of the mold in order to make an indentation into the clay for an open mouth....think about it. I later cut it away on the second head and made a closed mouth on that mold.


I merrily pressed clay into the mold, pulled the slab out, flipped it over and, OH NO! the fish is pointing the wrong way. Well, not the WRONG way, just the opposite way I wanted it to. (Forehead slap)

Do my chicken-walk out of the studio and go back to the house to think.

Then a brilliant idea hit me. Take that clay fish and cut it into sections, bisque it and use it as a press-mold to go INTO the tiles. Sorta anti-bas-relief tiles. Sorta the intaglio/cameo effect. Then I realized I could make more than one head and more than one tail. I could introduce movement into the design. So I made these:


Notice I haven't bothered to be neat on the back or edges. No need since the mold is very thick, which I wanted for strength and the back or edges would never come into use. So now the fish will be pointed in the RIGHT direction.

The Tile Project that Wouldn't Die

The Tile Project: An exercise in frustration.

The Idea

Create tiles for my shower stall using the theme of a fish ladder. Now, I must tell you that this will (drumroll) be the third attempt at making free-form fish-impressed tiles that will FIT on the WALL after firing. (rimshot)

Really, I must have some sort of tile dyslexia. I have measured carefully, I have constructed carefully, I have fired carefully and still, they do not fit.

The Process

I made a clay ruler to measure the shrinkage. The inches were marked and I bisque fired, glazed and fired again. I calculated the shrinkage of the tile.

I then made a paper pattern to fit the three walls of the shower. A la Renaissance cartoons for frescoes, I marked grids on the walls and made exactly the same grids on the paper. I drew the pattern on the paper. I cut the individual squares out and numbered them. I used a copy machine to increase the pattern to correspond with the percentage of the shrinkage of the clay. Good analytical thinking, right?

After rolling, impressing, cutting to grid, bisquing and firing, they still didn't fit. Too much shrinkage.

I modified the design. I decided instead of making a free-flow pattern which had too much risk of warpage and poor fit, I would make a band or frieze with new design.

I am making the tiles now.

Pray for me.

Finished Robot Tiles

The Robot tiles are finished







After the bisque firing, I applied a ceramic tile sealer over the surface.







They are now keeping an eye on that Snake Plate hanging on the opposite wall in the entryway.

More Tile in the Works

While I was doing the Robot Tiles, I made a dyptic using clay to sculp plant life as if it were being seen through windows. I applied black underglaze to the outter rims to frame the image. It was all I could do to keep from painting the whole thing and then and wiping off the underglaze on the sculptures.

Must remember to do this again. Reference post on Making Two.


Anyway

I'm really anxious to see how these turn out. The photo is of the greenware.

Woo Hoo! 500 Tiles

One of my tiles was selected for 500 Tiles by Lark Publications!

I got my comp copy a week or so ago.




The book is wonderful. Such an amazing variety of work. It's an inspirational index. No excuses about getting stumped about what to make; just open this book and get inspired.

I'm humbled by the incredible variety and skill of the work. It's a winner.


Dang

When I sent in the photo, I submitted 3 pieces - all of sea life - Didn't even think about taking a shot of them all together as some entries did.

**insert slap up the side of own head**

And did I think of the tile I wrote earlier about (November 2007) for the back of the standing mirror? Duh

**insert kick up the backside** Silly Attention-Deficit me.


I do it to myself. It's like, "Okay, worked that one out and made it. NEXT!" I promptly forget and go right on to the next thing.
Thank God for cameras.

Robot Jag, part Deux

Transfered drawings onto black underglazed greenware terracotta tiles by using scraffito with a fine needle tool. Boy, my hand is tired. I drew the robots using a soft-leaded pencil then scratched out the lines.


I have no idea if they are wide enough. I'm assuming the underglaze will stay put in a bisque kiln, then I can glaze the tiles with a transparent glaze.


These are definitely old-fashioned robots; not like the modern Japanese influenced transformer like models. They're more R2 D2 than C3po. I think I like the little fireplug, pressure tank guys.




I really like the toy-like look of the robots combined with the rather menicing dial-eyes.



All the tiles will fire to a deeper black. They appear a bit 'dusty' in the green stage because of the residual terra cotta dust left on the underglaze after carving the designs out.

A Tile Challenge

Some time ago, we bought a house in Sandbridge Beach, VA and someone left this mirror behind along with some furniture and odds and ends. I have no idea where it came from. I would guess Italy because when I cleaning up the wood carving, I discovered the gold was laid over a red undercoat. A handsome thing with one thing wrong: There was only cardboard backing the mirror, so when you turned it around it was really ugly.

I drug this thing around with me all over the place in subsequent moves and when I took a tile workshop/course with Marie Glass-Tapp in Seattle, one of the challenges I set for myself was to try and make a tile to put in the back. I wanted it to mirror the shape of the cut-out, so I did this tile first:

It turned out not exactly as I expected. I had little experience working with cobalt and didn't realize how strongly it overpowered just about anything it is applied to. This was supposed to be a light blue tile with contrasts between a really light blue (the white design under the cobalt) and a darker blue over a dark claybody.

I still like the tile and it sits on my table. Appearance wasn't the killer, though, Shrinkage was. I hadn't taken that into account when I made the tile assuming that the shrinkage would just be enough to allow for grout. But NO, the shrinkage was just too much.

Back to the drawing board. Second try = success. This backing has basically the same design, but this time I scraffittoed the wreath-like decoration in the center and the words that circle the outer edges of the tile. The white is a majolica glaze, so I was able to get away with the letters coming out in the color of the claybody. It reads: "The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes, without speaking, confess the secrets of the heart."

I love art and words.