I saw a picture in a book of a tile mosaic that looked like a carpet made of leaves.  These are difficult in the same way that quilting is difficult–they take precision and a great deal of time.  To make the leaf vein pattern, I used a mulberry leaf.  The shapes are about an inch to an inch and a half long, and I cut them from a hand-rolled slab using a small set of cookie cutters.

These are hand-rolled and cut tiles of 1 1/2 inch in diameter, stamped with commercial rubber stamps, underglazed, and glazed with a low-fire clear.

Here are three of the different colors of tiles I made during this session. The black and yellow ones were underglaze applied to the fired clay, then wiped off to expose the texture. The green ones show the texture because of the ultra-transparent nature of the glaze. I love transparent glazes for the way they let the clay body show through.  If I ever make my own glaze recipes, they will be clear celadon-like colors.

I made these tiles in this shape more because it was convenient to cut them than that they will do well in a mosaic. Actually, I’ve thought it would be really cool if I had cookie cutters in the shapes of tiles like are used in Islamic design. I haven’t yet seen any for sale. May have to make some.

This is “evergreen” on “ward’s red” clay.  This is the first time I’ve had it come out green.  Often it comes out an iron red.  The kiln overfired by quite a bit, so that may have had something to do with it.

With every load, I’ve been adding more small tiles for some unspecified mosaic project in the future.  These I used a glaze I have two bottles of, called “terra cotta.”  How funny–when you put terra cotta glaze on a terra cotta tile, the color looks…terra cotta. I’m not thrilled with them, but I will probably use them.