Tile Design

For this project, we had to create a series of tiles that interacted with each other in some way. We started this project by sketching out some ideas. I sketched out a few I really liked. The first one I did was very complicated, but it was really cool. I decided that a complicated design may not be the best choice for my first time making a tile, so I chose a simpler design. The design I chose was bikinis on a clothesline. I thought this would be cool because the line would string through each tile, and I would glaze each bikini in different colors.

The next thing we did was create a single tile. We made these tiles just how we wanted our results to look. We had to make at least two depths to the tile, so I made the bikinis and pins stick up. I cut out the shapes or each of the parts I wanted to be taller than the tile base and stuck them onto the tile. After that was dry, we created a box-like structure with pieces of wood and sealed the cracks with clay. Once that was done, we placed our tile at the bottom and filled it up with plaster. We let that dry for a while, and when it was done, we cleaned it out so that the cast of the tile would be imprinted on the plaster. After it was cleaned, we pounded clay into the mold to create our tiles. We did this six times.

Once the tiles were done and out of the mold, we smoothed them out and fixed any imperfections, and left them to dry to be fired. Once they were fired, it was time to start glazing. I started by doing the base of the tile. I made all of the bases the same color. Then, I started glazing the individual bikinis. I made these in different colors that reminded me of summer weather. I used a lot of bright colors. Then, I glazed the pins. Once those were all fired the last step was to put on the string. I wanted to use real string and just secure it onto each tile because glazing it on could potentially make the glazes mix. Overall, I am happy with the way it turned out. I did notice some imperfections when it was done, like cracks and uncleaned edges, but it turned out pretty well.