We’re created four more tile murals for the residence in Hawaii that we blogged about in December.

These four murals will adorn the walls outside of guest rooms on the property.  The mural designs reflect the flora of the area and are glazed in adobe, turquoise, persimmon and jade.

Handmade, ceramic wall tiles

Handmade, ceramic wall tiles, glazed in jade

Handmade, ceramic wall tiles

Handmade, ceramic wall tiles, glazed in turquoise

Natalie’s recent mural is now hanging on a rock wall at a residence in Hawaii. Natalie and Nick flew down to install the piece and to take a much-needed vacation.

Ceramic Wall Tiles installed in Hawaii

This Tree of Life, is beautifully mounted on a painted wall. We love the look of the darker paint behind the mural.

Tree of Life

One of our clients recently commissioned this piece to give his wife for Christmas. Natalie calls it Sunset.

Sunset, ceramic wall art tile

This mural, measuring 84″ w x 56″ h, was commissioned by a homeowner in Hawaii. Natalie will be installing this piece next week.  You can see that Natalie’s design reflects the flora and landscape of the Big Island.

Mural for installation in Hawaii

We were contacted in September by an interior designer in Hawaii who was interested in commissioning tile murals for the exterior of a client’s guest suites.

We sketched the designs and chose colors for each of the four guest suites (see below)

handmade, ceramic wall art tile by Natalie Blake Studios

Here are three of the four murals, carved and drying before bisque-firing.

Here is one of the finished murals, glazed in fern:

Mural glazed in fern

handmade, ceramic wall art tile by Natalie Blake Studios

This glaze is amethyst.

handmade, ceramic wall art tile by Natalie Blake Studios

This glaze is yellow

The interior designer then commissioned name plaques to designate each guest suite.

Here’s the result:

Handmade, ceramic, name plaques by Natalie Blake Studios

Here are some installation shots of the murals:

ceramic wall art tile

custom ceramic wall art tile glazed in amethyst

custom ceramic wall art tile glazed in blue

custom ceramic wall art tile glazed in fern

Natalie recently installed this mural at a residence on Lake Geneva, WI.

Here’s what Natalie had to say about the piece:

“This piece was inspired by Lake Geneva, which can be seen from the dining room and kitchen windows of this home in Wisconson.  The day I went to look at the walls I had been talking about with my client, the sun was warm and inviting, the water and sky blue with a lovely breeze. We sat out on the veranda and had breakfast and talked about wall art and the last few years of my adventures into wall sculpture and ceramic art tile. My client was inspired by the undulation in tile that gives the murals such life and motion. She liked the idea of her wall coming alive with a three dimensional hand carved rendition of her perfect view. We chose warm colors that came from the outdoors as well as colors in the wood, carpets, furnishings of her home.

The colors worked beautifully in the room! She had the perfect lighting already installed in the ceilings, that “scraped” the piece from top down to accentuate the undulation and texture in the handmade, handcarved, tiles.   Success!”

Lake Geneva, Handmade, custom, ceramic wall art tile by Natalie Blake Studios

Lake Geneva, WI installation

handmade, ceramic wall art tile by Natalie Blake Studios

Natalie and Nick are in Iowa finishing up an installation of Natalie’s wall art tile for a residential client.  These are the shape tiles we blogged about in August.

Here’s what Natalie had to say about these tiles:

“This commission was made at the Des Moines Art Festival in 2009.  The client had been searching for some original art for her foyer. My fiance, Nick and I went to visit her home, and we learned that the family loved music. The client and her daughter also loved butterflies. I came away from their house trying to imagine a mural that would suit the space but not overwhelm it.   Nick suggested on our drive back to Vermont that I break out of the square and create a piece I had not done before. Over the course of the next two years, I worked on designs, and the client renovated a large part of her house, including the stair and foyer.

I created large ceramic tiles that were abstracted instruments that morphed into animated abstractions, and then into abstracted butterfly designs.

I call the piece, “Diapason Unfurling”

Diapason means:

diapason |ˌdīəˈpāzən; -sən|noun (also open diapason or stopped diapason ):  an organ stop sounding a main register of flue pipes, typically of eight-foot pitch.

• poetic/literary the entire compass, range, or scope of something.

• figurative a grand swelling burst of harmony.

The last line is the best description of this piece. It is the first piece in the unfurling of a completely new approach to ceramic tile wall sculpture!  I am very excited to create other pieces in this fluid, breaking-out-of-square method.

The saxophone piece measures 42″ tall and 40″ wide, to give a sense of scale. The two middle sized notes are approximately a foot in length.”

Natalie and Nick installing wall art tile for a client

Butterfly tiles, handmade, ceramic wall tiles by Natalie Blake Studios

Butterfly: handmade, shaped, ceramic wall tile

handmade, ceramic wall tiles by Natalie Blake Studios

Natalie sent these pictures from the road in Iowa..

This is a blade of a windmill being transported down the highway.

Bonnie at Silver Fox Gallery, Hendersonville, NC, recently commissioned this piece, Tree of Life for a client.  The glazes are persimmon, adobe, new moss and turquoise.

Tree of Life, Silver Fox Gallery

This piece was commissioned by a client for her Florida home.  It is 36″ w x 60″ h, glazed in Cashew.

Miller installation, 2011

We took the liberty of Photoshopping the original image to show the piece glazed in our Dusk glaze.  We love it in both colors. We have 28 glazes to choose from!

handmade, sgraffito-carved, ceramic wall tile by Natalie Blake Studios

This lovely mural will be installed in a residence in Boulder, CO.

Mountainscape, ceramic wall art tiles by Natalie Blake Studios

The interior designer working with these homeowners emailed us a picture of the space where the mural would be hung–a well-lit stairwell–lots of natural lighting.  The homeowners had already decided that they liked our Mountainscape imagery.  We then Photoshopped an image of a previous Mountainscape mural into their photo.

Photoshopped image of Natalie Blake Studios ceramic wall tiles

Natalie recently installed these tiles in the bathroom of the house that she and her fiancee are building. The tiles are 18″ square and glazed in Robin’s Egg blue.

Robin's Egg Blue tiles

Robin's Egg blue tiles

Tree branch, ceramic tile mural by Natalie Blake Studios

This piece measures 48″ wide x 11.5″ high. It is glazed in honey, turquoise and a bit of jade. The glazes were oversprayed to create a more blended look.

Thanks to Danny M. for sending us these installation shots.  His Tree of Life is glazed in our beautiful blue glaze–it provides a high contrast with the slip underneath.

We think this is a wonderful place to install a tile mural. Sure beats a T.V screen!

Tree of Life, blue glaze

Tree of Life

Custom, handmade, ceramic backsplash

Tree of Life design

I met the couple who owns this piece at the American Craft Exposition in Chicago. They loved these tiles and came back several times to look at them. Finally, on their third visit to the booth, they asked me if I ever did trades.  ”Of course,” I said.  They asked if I would like to trade a week of time in their vacation home in Puerto Rico.

Six blues

Our beautiful Tree of Life in 18″ tiles has now been installed in a residential setting in Florida.  The piece is glazed in jade.  Here’s what the homeowner had to say:

“We are thrilled with the art piece now that it is in place and know we will enjoy it very much and be proud to display it to everyone.”

Tree of Life, jade glaze

Tree of Life, installed

We received the following email from a couple who saw Natalie’s work on our website:

“Hello, I am interested in a unalun contiguous design tile mural for the end of a catwalk hallway.  I was thinking of six, 14” tiles, 2 across and 3 down for a 28X42” piece.  The house is craftsman, Frank Lloyd Wright style and is located in a remote area of the Missouri Ozarks on top of a hill overlooking Current River.  The tree of life with rolling mountains, the sun and clouds as in your mountain piece and tree of life series would be perfect.  Is it possible to combine the two in a 28X42 piece?  Thank you.”

After Natalie wrote back, the customer gave more detail, which informed Natalie’s sketch of the piece.  Here’s the detail the customer gave:

“Well, in thinking about the tile mural, a rolling hill/mountain with a swirling current river with a full moon.  The moon light plays upon the water and it sparkles/shimmers.  Could have a bat flying, bamboo/cane on the river banks, gravel bars, cave, springs flowing into the Current River.  State tree is the Dogwood.  All of these images are in our house or in the plans (we are still building).  We have a cave bar inside with a bat chandelier and a cave grotto, outdoor shower, and waterfall outside.  The elevator doors are glass with carved bamboo and orbs.  The wall sconces lighting the catwalk hallway are Greene and Greene 1915 style art glass with dogwood blooms.  This area of the house is the guest quarters so maybe a night setting would be appropriate.  These are ideas/thoughts, something that might speak to the artist and inspire.”

Natalie was inspired!  Here’s the final mural.

Here’s what the client had to say when she received the piece:

“The art tile is just incredible.  I am so in love with it, a pleasure to gaze upon it.  The piece has so much life to it, the workers were in awe.”

Here’s our Lily Pads mural, installed. The jade green looks great on this wall!  For a closeup image, go to: http://unaluntile.com/tile-design-wall-murals/murals/

Lily Pads Mural, installed

Lee and his wife emailed this fall asking for a set of abstract tiles to install above their stove. Ellen emailed them images of several groupings of in-stock tiles and they ultimately chose these four.  Lee sent us these pictures and said “We LOVE the tiles!”

Thanks, Lee, and enjoy. They look beautiful!

handmade, sgraffito-carved, ceramic sculptural wall tiles by Natalie Blake Studios