Tiles Aren’t Just For Countertops Anymore!

This article was submitted by guest author Cheri Freund. Cheri’s work has been shown internationally and is available as Limited Edition Giclee prints or as Tile Art. If you like this article, leave a comment below and we’ll make sure to invite Cheri back again to share more articles.

Cheri Freund In my previous post, I mentioned about the various media that enables an artist to become more diversified in their art offerings. This particular presentation option appeals to interior designers, architects, and potentially the everyday consumer. What I’m referring to, is having art produced onto tile – and I’m not just talking countertop tiles. With today’s tile production technology, there have been major strides in a wider range in gamma (color) within these printing methods, for example; toner and firing / baking the images onto tile, etc. Certain tile companies have the ability to produce images / art onto various tile materials such as glass, porcelain, ceramic, tumbled stone and some ‘green’ tiles that contain recycled glass embedded. The one thing to keep in mind about the ‘green’ tile (from what I understand) is that they aren’t a pure white – like that of a porcelain and/or ceramic tile. So keep in mind, this ‘green’ material will produce a slightly different color in the final art production, but this too is currently being improved.

What are the advantages of producing your art and/or images such as fine art, logo & photos, onto tile? Unlimited really. One advantage that I found beneficial presenting my art in this manner, is that my art can be produced for larger wall spaces to that of a traditional Giclee print. Therefore, murals or floating wall art can be placed and/or installed in many interior or exterior spaces – residential, commercial or a public space. They can even be used as accent tiles for a back-splash in a kitchen or bath, floor tiles in a lobby area, a half wall in a corridor, or a table-top – perhaps on the outside structure of a receptionist’s desk, etc. Let your creative imagination run wild with the many possibilities to present tile in a unique way.

Something else your clients will LOVE – an interior designer presenting the art onto tile option to their clients just got even better! Now there are calibration devices (similar to that of a hand-held scanner) that can color match a fabric or paint swatch and then the tile fabricator who is set up to use this technology, can then take that captured color information and bring it into his/her computer system to create a color border (to look like a matt border that you find on a framed print), or to help tweak the color tones within an image to better match the environment the tile art will be placed. Of course, ONLY with the permission of the artist should this process ever be used.

"Gold Rush" by Cheri Freund

The image shown above – ”Gold Rush” – is an example of one of my images produced onto glass tile using a color matching system from the tile fabricator, who in turn created a double border around the image to ‘frame’ the art. The tile was mounted onto a special backing board and ready to hang.

To learn more, I invite you to visit –> http://www.cherifreund.com