3D Tile

new tiles

These two tiles were made in terracotta with the wave pattern as I described in my last post, fired in a bisque fire and then painted with green and blue glazes. This was then rubbed off, revealing the wavy pattern of terracotta ridges. The tiles were then coated again with clear glaze and fired once more. This takes a long time but it can't be rushed. My son Bevis tells me that the tile should be set to dry on a piece of plasterboard that uniformly draws the wet from the tile and prevents it from warping.

Croissant Box Pattern

 We bought a box of croissants one day and I was smitten by the pattern of the cardboard container - it was too good for recycling. When I took it in to my class, Paul suggested that I should paint the cardboard with shellac, build a clay surround, and pour in a portion of plaster to make a more permanent stamp than the cardboard original.  When I had stamped out the tile, I painted on white glaze into the grooves.  I then rubbed off the raised surface with a clean cloth before painting on the black glaze.

I saw in the British Museum an Assyrian wall relief with rivers flowing in just such a way as this pattern and thought I might go on to make a river box with the plaster stamp - clay fish and clay snails could be added before it was fired.

Bay Tree Leaf

One day I saw a bay leaf with the sunshine coming through it and thought that I should take a photo to use in some way. That was ten years ago and making a tile now with a section of the pattern drawn on it would be a suitable homage to the now long gone Bay Tree.

Ploughed fields

  These tiles were inspired by the patterns of ploughed fields in North Essex where I lived in 1960.   Both were made out of buff clay left to dry a little, with terracotta slip applied on top then scraped away using the sgraffito method. 

Bevis's Zodiac tile

 'Bevis, the story of a boy' is a book written by Richard Jefferies in 1882.  In Chapter 35, 'Bevis's Zodiac', Jefferies describes how Bevis looked at the clear sky one night when he was camping on an island and saw these stars.  " The stars shone brighter than it is usually thought they do when there is no moon; but in fact it is not so much the moon as the state of the atmosphere.  There was no haze in the dry air, and he could see the Pole Star distinctly"  I was always inspired by Richard Jefferies writing and it was because of this that we named our son Bevis, for whom the tile was made.

The Shooting Star

 

              

 

This is a heavy tile, nearly an inch thick.  When  I roll out the tiles I use battens  and a rolling pin.  This one is thicker than most of the tiles I have made since.  I let the clay dry quite hard, then made the stars by boring shallow holes using drill bits held in my fingers.  I was inspired by seeing shooting stars in the dark countryside skies.  It was bisque fired then glazed dark blue in the middle and black around the edge.  After the second firing, I put on the words and the stars with white glaze. 

Sun Burst Tile

The top drawing is one I did on the computer, then printed to be traced onto a thin layer of clay; I then cut out the design and applied it to the tile with slip.

          

The middle picture shows the bisque fired tile with the first layer of glaze applied .  The Hunter Green border looks pale before it is fired. 

I applied  Hunter green, red, yellow, dark blue and white glazes and the bottom picture is the tile after the final firing.

 

Introduction

I made this tile in Nantes France where my son Bevis and his partner Charlie have a studio. He set me up with a tile, sitting in the sun and I made the picture of the earth and sky scratching through the dark slip. He fired it and put a clear glaze on it. I was pleased with the result so....

....in my weekly sculpture classes at the Mary Ward Centre in London  with Paul Badger as my tutor, I started to make tiles.  I had been an illustrator but the onset of primary progressive multiple sclerosis meant that I had lost fine control of my right hand, had increased difficulty with walking, and I took to using a wheelchair. Paul Badger was very accommodating in making space in the studio and providing helpers for me. I thought that working with clay and clay tools might suit me, so I signed up for the course