Making & Installing Handmade Tiles

by Angelica Pozo

Softcover: 160 pages
Publisher: Lark Books (2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1-57990-525-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-57990-525-5
Dimensions: 11.25" x 8.75" x 0.7"
Shipping Weight: 2.04 lbs.

Ceramic tile-making offers many opportunities for creative expression. The finished surface, which has a beauty all its own, can be embellished with textures or decorated with slips and glazes. Tile can mimic granite, limestone, leather, marble, and glass. And fired tile is both attractive and durable. That's why scores of contemporary ceramists are designing and creating tiles to incorporate into their work, whether as art on display or as a decorative element in the home. Now a well-known tile artist fully explains how to create, enhance, and install ceramic tile for both beginners and those with more experience.

Familiarize yourself with the ceramic process as well as the tools and materials you'll need for making tiles, from clays and glazes to slab rollers and kilns. Angelica Pozo makes it easy to learn a variety or fired-tile techniques that can be used to create exciting decorative effects. If you're eager to see results, majolica, underglaze painting, wax resist, and glaze trailing are rewarding techniques to start with. Now that you know the wonderful effects that are possible on fired clay, try slab rolling and cutting unfired clay into squares for a mosaic panel. Move on to the wet-clay techniques, from stamping, carving, and inlaying designs to the more advanced technique of making press molds to produce a series of identical tiles. Pozo's time-tested advice for loading and firing kilns completes this comprehensive section of the book.

Once you know how to make tiles, you can follow the detailed advice on installing them and put your skills to good use on attractive and practical projects, both indoor and out. Some of the projects can be completed using tiles of any size, like the Mosaic and Tile Tabletop; for others, you'll learn how to create and install tiles specific to a site, such as for the Stair Risers and Garden Stepping-Stones. The various techniques you'll master will apply to the most common installation situations, whether for crafting a small project or enhancing an entire kitchen with tile.

Now you achieve beautiful tile work in your own home.