Natalie Blake 10/4/13 Natalie Blake 10/4/13

Making a custom, kitchen backsplash

Our most recent backsplash…we call it Little Tree because we customized the tiles, making 7" x 7" tiles in order to fit the entire tree in the space.

A homeowner contacted us to order a custom-made, ceramic tile backsplash to go above her kitchen range. She gave us the dimensions of the wall space that she wanted to fill, minus the size of the "rod" style tile in black, wrought iron, that will border the custom tiles we make. We then determined that she'd need 7" x 7" tiles, allowing for the groutlines. When she said she wanted the Tree of Life design we Photoshopped an image of a Tree of Life mural on the image she sent us of her space. She loved it!

Photoshopped image of Tree of Life backsplash

She approved, and we've started the piece. We will work with her to pick glaze colors, first by sending her a sampling of 3" x 3" color chips so that she can see the actual glaze colors before making her choice.

handmade tile, Natalie Blake, ceramic tile, backsplash tile

We've started making the piece by first rolling out the tiles, and draping them over our forms on the table to give the tiles our signature undulation.

Click on the image below to watch a short video of this process:

Here we are carving the piece:

backsplash tile, handmade tile, Natalie Blake

Here's the final piece, fresh from the kiln.

handmade, ceramic backsplash tile by Natalie Blake

We just received (Dec 10, 2013) 2 images of the piece being installed. These images show the tiles in place, but not yet grouted. Stay tuned for more images!

Natalie Blake 7/3/13 Natalie Blake 7/3/13

Q&A: Colors in Ceramic Sgraffito Art

Curious tile-lovers have a lot of questions about how we make our ceramic sgraffito art. So, we've collected some recent questions about color and glazes to answer here in our blog. This Q&A session focuses on color. Color – bright, vibrant, inviting color – is as much a part of Natalie Blake Studios’ distinctive ceramic art as sgraffito carving. While this isn't quite an article on how to glaze ceramics, we hope it will ease (or rather, pique) your curiosity about our most colorful ceramic sgraffito work. Here goes!

Q:How do you achieve the contrasting color where you have carved? I am sure you don't have that many different colors of clay.George H., via email

A: Great question, George, especially because it lets us start at the very beginning. To achieve that high contrast, we apply a coating of slip to unfired porcelain clay before beginning sgraffito carving. Our handmade tile designs are created by carving through the top slip covered layer. After the ceramic is bisque-fired, we apply colored glazes and fire again. The colors only show in the carved areas, and the dark slip that remains blends with the layer of glaze and shows through as black or some range of grey depending on what glaze it is blending with and how thickly the glaze is applied.

Q: How did you get that Melon color, it’s spectacular! Martha A., via Facebook

A: We have done a lot of testing to find glazes that are compatible with our claybody and which the slip blends well with. All this testing has resulted in a huge stock of more than 30 different colored glazes that we choose from to color our sgraffito ceramics. This bowl looks melon-y thanks to an exterior glazed in jade and a watermelon interior glaze.

Q: How do you manage to get the shades of a single colour so evenly spread over a tile?Lata D., via Facebook

A: To apply our colored glazes, we use an industrial paint sprayer like the ones used to paint cars. It is essentially an airbrush, spraying a “mist” of glaze that our staff can control to change the intensity of the color. We spray one glaze at a time across the tiles, applying each glaze where we want that color on the mural, similar to painting. Spreading the color evenly and achieving smooth blending is an art that we are continually perfecting!

Got more questions about colors and glazes? Ask away in the comments or on Facebook, and tell us what you'd like to see on the next Q&A blog about our handmade ceramic art.

Natalie Blake 6/25/13 Natalie Blake 6/25/13

Natalie Blake Studios Ceramic Wall Art Wins Award

Our ceramic wall art is now officially award-winning! The news has us very excited, so pardon the exclamation points: we won a gallery award at Art Comes Alive! The annual fine art contest and exhibit took place this past weekend in Cincinnati, OH. We are honored that our tile art was voted into the exhibit, and even more so to receive a contract award from Gallery One, Naples, FL. This is the piece that got us there: "Botanical", a 42" x 56" ceramic wall art mural, glazed in honey, turquoise, cashew, moss and jade.

According to the Art Comes Alive sponsors, Art Design Consultants, Inc., the awards recognize the “brightest and best artists in a variety of categories.” Our piece is one of 150 chosen for the exhibit, out of a staggering 1,500 entries. Getting our tile art mural into the exhibit itself is no small feat, and requires an intense jurying process.

Roy Saper, owner of Saper Galleries and Custom Framing, was one of the jurors responsible for choosing pieces for the exhibit. “The online jurying process took me hours. And hours. And hours,” he said. And no wonder, with so many pieces of art in the mix. After each juror reviews each piece, the ones with the most votes are included in the exhibit. From that list, galleries and award donors choose the recipients of their awards.

That's where Gallery One comes in – they awarded us a gallery award, and will now carry our work at their gallery in Naples, FL. We will be honored to be represented by this great gallery, which also represents our good friend, fabulous Vermont artist and Fulcrum Arts Center business partner, Randi Solin of Solinglass. Funnily enough, we will share Gallery One with Dr. Seuss as well.