This post is about a project I did a few years ago- a commission to mosaic a curved plastered wall for an out door shower/sauna . The client was really brave, the best yet, and said- I want something quirky and fanciful, and please could she notice something new, every time she had a shower? She gave me her collection of mosaic things, a shoebox of a few interesting pieces for me to include in the mosaic.
We made a few tile samples in the colours and designs we thought our client would approve of, and once that was all sorted, we started in earnest making hundreds and hundreds of hand made square and circle tiles, and I decorated some of them using a wax resist method- like batik textiles. The wax burns off in an extra pre-glaze firing, they are cleaned and then glazed over in light blues, greens or clear glazes.
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| 5x5cm tiles |
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| small hearts and circles |
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| large plate sized circles, thrown on wheel. Some were made to dry in a curved shape to fit the wall of the shower. |
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| these were for in-between the circles, and cutting into smaller pieces |
I prepared the wall with key coat/bonding liquid and began the month long mosaicing job. It was in a lovely garden setting and very hot, so I rigged up a shade-cloth cover. I paid my son to help me and we enjoyed working together as a team.
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| I worked from the floor upwards |
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| the outside nook for sauna and shower |
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| details |
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| details |
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| signed MN |
Brilliant work! I found your site by stumbling and hope you are still actively checking this blog. So many questions. As a beginning ceramics student, how did you glaze fire all of the small pieces? How did they not stick to the kiln shelves? What cone did you fire your bisque and glaze firings? I appreciate all of your answers! So thrilled to see your work. Debbie Graham
ReplyDeleteI have been working on a new website:
ReplyDeletewww.ceramicsandmosaics.co.za and that is why I have been a bit quiet. Please have a look at it. All my new blog posts will be published there also, but the website also has super photo galleries of all my tile ranges, mosaic inserts and pottery etc.
To stop your small pieces sticking to the kiln shelves, you have to wipe any glaze off on their under surface, before firing them. We fire to about 1120deg Celcius, as we use white earthenware clay.
thank you for your answer. A few more questions please. Do you lay every mosaic piece on the kiln shelf flat or on stilts? Your amazing black and white tiles-you have stated that you use wax resist. I have never done this. Does this still involve just two firings--the underglaze over wax, then clean off tiles and fire second time with clear glaze? And finally-for the moment :)-do you use clear gloss glaze vs. matt as a personal preferance? I checked out your new blog and bookmarked it! Love your work! Debbie Graham
ReplyDeleteWe place every piece flat on a shelf. we have these mini- tile stacking shelves, which we put in the kiln and we use those to use the kiln space efficiently.. To apply wax decorations- apply wax to the bisked tile( already fired once to about 1000 deg C) Then after the wax, the underglaze colors go on, then another firing to 1000deg C. Clean up pieces and then do glaze firing. Lots of hard work, but still worth it, I think
ReplyDeletewonderful work and thanks for all your helpful tips
ReplyDelete