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This is one of my newest Hearthome Tiles.

Of course birds have homes too! This lucky bird already has a home. It was made especially for a member of the AREtsy Team (Arkansas Artists on Etsy). The team had a swap for the members that wanted to participate in the swap. We were to make something to go with the theme SpringTweets. So I created this Hearthome for this little birdie.

The second photo is the tile before it was glazed and fired the second time. After it is bisque fired (the first firing), I then glaze it with a thinned black glaze. After it is dry, I wipe off the excess black glaze from the raised surfaces of the tile. Then I add the other glaze colors. Once I get all of the colors added, I glaze the entire tile with a clear glaze. When that is dry, it is ready for its' final firing.

What do you think should live in a Heart Home?  ~Beth

"The Ritz" - Custom Tile Finished!

My latest clay tile is finished and on its way to its new owner who plans to give it as a gift. It has taken many weeks for this process to be completed because of the many steps that are required to finish a clay piece. First I made sketches from the description that the customer gave to me for what she wanted. In this case, she wanted a lakehouse. She made a couple of suggestions for changes of little details. Then I created the tile in clay, which took me 3 to 4 hours. Then the drying and waiting time began. To avoid warping of the tile, I loosely cover my tiles for several days to start the drying process, very slowly. After it is leather hard, I start to uncover the tile for a little while each day. I don't want the little details to dry too quickly. Eventually leaving it uncovered to completely dry out. Some of the edges are cleaned up, then I put it into the kiln to fire. After it is bisque fired, I apply black glaze to the surface and wipe away the black on the top surfaces, leaving black in the creases, lines, indentions, etc. The black glaze makes the texture and the depth show up better. The glaze colors are painted on, then refired. The best part is opening up the kiln to see the final result! Hopefully, it looks like I planned. Sometimes it does not. That can be disappointing. Although this process can take several weeks, I enjoy it and the creative process.

Another week of school done and I'm beginning to get caught up and ready to start working on some things of my own. I have some clay tiles and some smaller pieces that I need to glaze and fire to add to my Etsy shop. I hope to do that soon. Here is one of the tiles I'm working on before it was fired. I will post an update as soon as I glaze fire it.

Fish Themed Clay Tiles

As I promised a couple of weeks ago, I am posting the results of some of the clay tiles that I made at school this year. My students began a unit learning how to use clay. As an introductory project to the clay (most students have never worked with clay), I assigned them to create a textured tile design. I showed them a couple of my examples from last year(here and here), and explained how they could add a variety of textures by carving out clay and adding clay pieces to raise the surface. They had to roll the clay out into slabs, cut them out into a square shape, cut out their design pieces, then start putting them together. So after they got settled and began working on their pieces, I started a couple of new ones so they can watch the progress and hopefully get some ideas that they can apply to their own clay pieces. Here are two pictures showing my results. The first is the two fish tiles after the bisque firing. I have also added black glaze to emphasize the carved lines and corners and edges. After removing the black from the raised surfaces, I added the rest of the glaze colors. The tiles were fired in the kiln one more time to get the final shiney results you see in the 2nd photo.

Fish Tiles after bisque firing

Fish Tiles after Glaze Firing

Beth S. Macre © 2008