Our latest Tree of Life mural was recently installed in a residence in Florida. Each tile was sprayed with two glazes to add richness to the colors. Thanks to John and Mavis, owners ofAvalon Gallery, Delray Beach, FL, for their assistance with this project!
Tree of Life by Natalie Blake Studio
Tree of Life, ceramic wall art tile by Natalie Blake Studios
Tree of Life, ceramic wall art tile by Natalie Blake Studios
Here’s our most recent residential installation. You can read about the design process for this mural here.
Vine tile mural installed
Here’s what the homeowner had to say “I want you to know that I am totally happy with them! I just love the impact they have on the room, and my husband likes them just as much. They add so much texture and color. They have the movement and feeling that I was looking for; I couldn’t be happier. Thanks again for taking the time to meet with Nancy and me. You were very helpful as I tried to articulate my preferences. The end result is absolutely stunning!” Kathy, homeowner
An art consultant contacted us this winter, asking for help in designing a tile mural for a residential installation. The art consultant sent us images of the client’s living room to give us an idea of style and color.
The client liked the idea of a botanical design. We sketched the following design and the client loved it:
We proposed a mural of 9, 12″ square tiles to fill the wall leading into the space. The client worked with her interior designer, taping paper cut-outs on the wall to determine spacing. Here’s what they initially came up with.
"Before" shot
We made a counter proposal which the client really liked. We glazed the piece in honey, jade, and cashew. Here’s the finished piece:
Vine, handmade, ceramic wall art tile by Natalie Blake Studios
Here’s the piece installed in the space.
Vine, installed
We just received more images of our tiles installed at the Hawaii residence. We made murals and name plates for guest suites at a residence in Hawaii. See our earlier posts on this project.
These latest murals are glazed in russet, persimmon, jade and turquoise. Click here to see closeups of each of these murals.
Natalie Blake Studios handmade, ceramic wall art tile, residential installation
Natalie Blake Studios handmade ceramic wall art tile installed in Hawaii
Natalie Blake Studios handmade, ceramic wall art tile, residential installation
Natalie Blake Studios handmade, ceramic wall art tile, residential installation
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
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
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