Earth Song Tiles: How our ceramic tiles are made

Celtic tiles \  Plant and floral tiles  \  Animal, bird and wildlife art tiles
Mythological and nude tiles  \  Custom handcrafted plain ceramic tile
Tile color options  \  Designing your handmade tile project
Tile ordering information  \  Decorative ceramic tile installations
The art and craft of handmade tiles, how we make 'em
About the people who handcraft Earth Song Tiles  \  Links you might like
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Each handmade relief tile starts with an original
carving done in porcelain
 
When the carving is complete,
a plaster mold is taken from it.
The original carving rarely survives this process.
 
 
Earthenware clay is then hand pressed
and pounded into the mold

 
The tiles are removed from the mold
and dried slowly to prevent warping
 
When dry, most tiles are hand painted
with under glazes and fired
in a kiln at 2000 degrees
 
The hand painted tile is now hard and the color
permanently bonded to the clay
 
 A wash of under glaze is applied
over the whole tile
 
The under glaze is then wiped off leaving
color in the recesses of the carving and
the previously hand painted and natural
clay color on the raised parts

 
A clear glaze is applied over the relief carved tile and it's fired again
The tile now has a glass like finish
Some of the tiles have a translucent or metallic
art glaze, with no underglaze

Ceramic tiles with metallic or mother of pearl luster
have it applied now over the glaze and are
 fired a third time at a much lower temperature
 

The field or plain tiles are made by rolling out slabs
of clay to the right thickness and
hand cutting them to the appropriate size and shape
 

Plain ceramic tiles then go through much the same
decorating and firing process as the relief carved tiles

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