Two of the finished hand-painted bathroom tiles
When I started trying to work out what I wanted for tiles in the bathroom, I realised (again) that trying to source something distinctive and pretty could work out very expensive. My favourites were these, from Fired Earth. Check out that price tag! £1000, yikes. I thought about more Morrocan style tiling, or ornate Victorian tiles, but couldn’t find anything I could afford.
“So how hard can it be to make my own?” I wondered. The answer, as it turns out, is “not as hard as you’d think”. As long as you can find a kiln, the materials are pretty inexpensive. You just need to find a design that is within your artistic ability, whatever that might be. Here’s how I did it.
I was fortunate enough to know an experienced ceramicist, Gill Palmer, so naturally sought her advice first. She pointed me in the right direction for tiles and other materials, and talked me through the process. Since I’d decided I just wanted flat tiles that I’d paint, I discovered there was no need to actually make my tiles from scratch, you can buy ready made “bisque” tiles at standard sizes.
I bought mine from Cromartie, a pack of 44 tiles for about £20 plus postage. They were very good during the order process, but less friendly and helpful when I had a query later on I’m sorry to say. Ah well. I ordered the paints, Amaco Velvet Underglaze, from Bath Potter’s Supplies. No complaints there, they were very helpful. These paints are about £4 a pot. After 9 tiles I’m not even half through one pot of the paint I’m using for the design, and am nearly through a pot of white I’m using to cover the background. So still looking pretty cheap!
Amaco velvet underglaze paint in Teal Blue
Note: you have to choose the colour of paints based on what colour it will *fire* to, rather than what it looks like out of the pot. Underglaze colours become more intense and darker once glazed and fired. You can see the comparison on the Bath Potter’s site.
For the designs, I used the wonderful sea creature images of Ernst Haeckel, adapting images from his books on Natural Forms and Radiolarians into line drawings. His images are complex and often multicoloured, but I just traced over them, simplifying them in the process, and then copied those tracings.
I had decided to paint about 30 tiles, and then dot them around in between plain white gloss tiles (the sort you get in big packs from DIY stores fairly cheap). I painted the background with about 3 layers of white underglaze to match those gloss tiles and then painted on my copied designs with a much thinner paintbrush. I liked to keep the brush pretty heavy with paint rather than try and do any fine details as it flowed easier. Worked fine as long as I kept things fairly simple (my attempts at complicated octopi were a failure, for example). The amount of paint used affects how dark the final colour which is something to keep in mind.
Here are some of the unfired painted designs on Twitpic, notice how the blue changes in the later fired tiles:
Once the first batch was done, I had to get them glazed and fired. There are a few places around that offer firing services, it’s worth checking with any local ceramicists. I originally found Jo Davies, who was very helpful and offered very reasonable prices for firing but lived just that bit too far away. Good for north London, not so much for me in the south. I then had a brainwave and called my local ceramics cafe, All Fired Up in East Dulwich, who were more than happy to help. They offer a firing service starting at only £4.50! They glazed them for me as well.
As an aside, I’d been before to All Fired Up to have coffee and paint their little dinosaurs and so on. I think it really helped to have a go before embarking on this tiling project; to get a sense of how the paint worked and how it looked after firing. I recommend trying this, even if you do go on to drop your hand painted polka dot mug and break it.
So, here is my first batch, fresh out of the kiln. Pretty pleased. You don’t seem to get a white that quite matches the even high-gloss white of shop-bought tiles, but I don’t think it will matter. Now I only have another 20 or so more to do…
First batch of fired tiles
Fixing It Up 