Ceramic Arts

Although I have never been a particularly skilled individual when it comes to art (save for a brief dabbling with photography), I am enjoying using the house as a creative outlet.  My latest  project has been creating address tiles for the front of the house.  There was an empty nail sitting unoccupied to the right of the entry alcove, and I thought it would be a good place to hang an address marker.  I browsed online for handpainted ceramic options, and quickly discovered that they were considerably above my budget ($100 and up).  We entertained the thought of saving up for one or asking for one for a Christmas present, but then I found some pretty little Italian tiles from Higuera Ceramics, on sale for only $10 each (normally $18 each).

Nick and I both really liked these, but I noticed that there was no "1" tile on their website.  I called them to ask about ordering, but they informed me that they did not have a "1" tile and they would not be getting any more in stock (hence the sale).  I was frustrated, but then found a nice little website with instructions for DIY handpainted tiles for under $50.  So I decided to give it a shot!

The first step was buying plain tiles.  These were simply blank white 2"x4" ceramic tiles from Lowe's, like the subway tiles you could put on a kitchen backsplash; I purchased a sheet of 9 for about $3.50.

I was originally planning to purchase number stencils and use them to paint the tiles, but Michael's did not have any that I liked, so I decided to make my own.  I printed up a sheet with our address number in about thirty different fonts, and then when I decided that I didn't like any of them, I browsed online and found KL1_Monocase Serif, a free font with lovely numbers.

.

The stencil idea ended up not working out so well, as the stencil film was just about impossible to cut properly.  My Xacto knife, despite being labeled in-store as specifically a stencil-cutting knife, was simply not up to task for fine details and curves.  So that was a waste of a few bucks but hopefully I can use it for some other project.

So much for my blue stencil sheets!

So instead, I opted to go with tracing paper.  It seemed to make the most sense to have the numbers and the design that I wanted all on one sheet of paper, and then to cut the individual tile squares out and trace them onto the tiles after the design was complete. 

Knowing that my drawing skills were severely limited, I thought it would be smart to draw myself some gridlines.

Then I did my best to freehand a design similar to the one Nick and I both liked from the Italian tiles, using the grid to help me be more or less even across all the tiles.

Not bad for a non-artist!

Then came the slightly tricky part of taping the paper with the design onto a sheet of tracing paper and cutting each individual tile out.  I had to make sure not to cover the design or the back side of the design (on the tracing paper) with the tape so as to not interfere with the transfer process.

At this point I discovered that my computer had lied to me, and that the 2"x4" paper rectangles were actually a little bigger than the 2"x4" tiles.  I taped the edges down and hoped that it would work out.  Then it was time to trace my design and hope...and the tracing paper did not let me down!  The overlap at the edges ended up a little bit off because the paper was a little too big, but I figured that could be fixed at the time of painting.

Then it was time to paint.  I discovered that one of the mini-set of acrylic paints I had just purchased had dried out, but thankfully the black paint was still viable.  It was a little thicker than I would have liked, but it worked well enough.  I settled on green and gold for the leaves and buds; the original Italian tiles were red and green but that looked too Christmas-like, and the green and gold is more earthy.  Overall, I think the paint job turned out pretty well.  It doesn't look professional or machine-made, but it's not supposed to; it is homemade and hand-painted and that's alright with me.

To have something to mount the tiles on, I bought a pre-cut piece of pine wood at Michael's and stained it slightly darker.  I like the look!

Done!  The final steps are just to adhere the tiles to the back of the wood and then hang the whole thing on the front of the house; I'll try to remember to upload a picture of that once it is done.