Practice Koi Tile Mural

"Practice Koi Tile Mural"

Image size 18" x 36"

Glazed Ceramic tiles

I finished painting the practice painting that will lead me into painting the huge tile mural for my yard.  I was really nervous about finally painting the clay because I didn't know how it would turn out.

I don't know if you can see in this photo, but two of the lily pads have the dark green veins oozing and they look really bad.  Also, I added a dark green around the edges which doesn't show because the glaze that I used was too transparent.  I wasn't sure if I could add more glaze and refire but decided it was worth it to try.  

I used my Dremel tool to grind the dark green glaze that had oozed out of place by the veins on the lily pads.

Then, I repainted the same background color over the areas that I ground. These are two different lily pads.

You can see how different the color looks before it is fired.  I also painted a different dark green around the edges but didn't take a picture of that before I fired it.

Here is a picture of a portion of the painting showing the newly fired lily pads.

I'm also not entirely satisfied with the color in the water.  I think it needs to have more really dark areas and also some greenish color.  This week, I think I will add some glazes to the water and see what happens.

Knowing that I can add glaze and change things really reduces my sense of anxiety about painting the real mural.  I'm very happy that I had this smaller version to use for practice.

I've started painting the small side of the mural.  It will take a while!