Cuerda Seca

Text and photographs show how to design and fabricate flat and relief tiles, decorate and fire the tiles, install the finished tiles, and much more.

Provides information about ceramic methods and materials for both beginners and more experienced potters.

Ceramic tiles have a special look when crafted with the millennia-old cuerda seca method. This guide provides all the how-to info you need to bring the fascinating method to life, covering every aspect of the process from the equipment and tools to formulating the right clay body to final installation.

Presents a region-by-region history of the art of the Islamic world, looking at architecture, the art of the book, mosaics, pottery, textiles, and other decorative art forms.

Handmade Tile is a contemporary guide for ceramic artists and anyone interested in custom tile installations—from making, designing, and decorating to designing your space and installation. No matter how many years of experience you have as a ceramic artist or how many home-improvement projects you’ve tackled, nothing prepares you for the unique world of ceramic tile. From concept and design, through firing and installation, ceramic tiling is one of the few places in a home where art is permanently installed as a feature of a room. In Handmade Tile, Forrest Lesch-Middelton shares everything he’s learned as the founder and owner of the custom tile business FLM Ceramics and Tile. From his years as a one-man operation to his current production facility, Forrest has seen it all and helps you every step of the way. Whether you want to make your own tile, or want to use artistic and custom-made tile in your home, this book has everything you need. Key features of the book include: Making Tile: key tools, rolling, cutting, extruding Decorating: glazes, image transfer, cuerda seca, underglaze, slip Designing Your Space: tile in context, choosing your tile, codes and standards Installation: removing old tile, backing, preparing surfaces, setting, grouting Galleries and interviews with today’s top workings artists in tile round out the package. Featured artists include Allison Bloom, Boris Aldridge, Disc Interiors, PV Tile, and more.

Revisiting al-Andalus brings together a range of new approaches to the material culture of Islamic Iberia, highlighting especially new directions in Anglo-American scholarship in this field since the influential exhibition in 1992, Al-Andalus: the Art of Islamic Spain.

A comprehensive, full-color exploration of tile art and production worldwide, from earliest times to the present day. The book is both an authoritative work of reference and a visual delight, ranging from ancient Greece, where the first fired roof tiles date from as early as the third millennium BC, to twentieth-century Mexico. Along the way we encounter stunning examples of the tiler's art: the enormous English medieval floor pavements from Byland Abbey and Clarendon Palace; figural tiles from China, intended to adorn roofs and ward off evil; the famous Iznik tiles from the Islamic world, with their richly decorative patterns; the highly stylised ceramic tiles of the Arts and Crafts movement; and the tiles created by some of the finest ceramic artists and potters of the twenty-first century. Placing the tiles firmly in their historical and cultural context, the book highlights both continuity and diversity, the dissemination of techniques and designs, and how tile art in one time and place has inspired and rejuvenated those in others. Tiles are also studied in terms of function as well as form, and the full range of architectural and practical purposes for which they have been used - from floors to roofs, stoves to bathrooms, cathedrals to metro stations - will be explored, along with the various techniques employed to create such versatile pieces. 5000 Years of Tiles is the essential, most comprehensive single volume for anyone interested in the ceramic, decorative, and architectural arts.

Handmade Tiles is a complete guide to tiles and the techniques involved in making them. It explains the full process from first design ideas through to installation so that all makers, whether from a ceramics background or not, can benefit from the detailed instruction. Supported by over 600 images, it gives practical advice and tips so that makers can work with confidence, and includes an inspiring range of finished examples so they can develop their own unique style. For artists and makers, tiles are a form of artistic expression. For architects and designers, they add texture, colour and pattern to spaces. For those new to ceramics, they are an opportunity to explore the key skills of decoration, glazing and modelling. Catering for all these readers, Marion Brandis has written a detailed guide to how tiles can be made and used most effectively, and how their full potential can be realised. She first explains how to get started with a specific project in mind. She then looks at different ways of decorating and making tiles, particularly focusing on the exciting possibilities of surface decoration using glazes and slips. She goes on to explore how to make tiles with relief work and three-dimensional forms, using modelling and moulds. Further chapters on tiles and print, installation, freeform tiling, the tile in context and working to commission complete this impressive guide.