Painting on Tile

When you’re a self-employed artist, you’ll take any job that comes your way. Such was the case when a ‘regular’ client commissioned me to paint the tile behind her cooktop.

I met Gayle when I was a floral designer at a crafts store and did the flowers for her daughter’s wedding. She knew I also painted and called me when they were building their dream home.

They had just taken a trip to Italy and visited numerous wineries. She gave me their vacation pictures and asked me to paint this particular one on porcelain tile.

Was I scared? You bet! But I’d worked (a little) with some glass/tile paint and decided to give it a go. She gave me a box of 6” square porcelain tile and I went to work.

When the painting was finished, I went to the job site (the house  was in the process of being built), ready to hand the tiles over to the tile guys. They took one look at the mural and shook their heads. No way were they going to install it. In fact, they said the paint would scratch off and that there was no paint on the market that would last on tile.

Silly men. How many times have I gone to Home Depot and told the guys what project I was working on, only to be told it’d never work.

I’d never laid tile in my life. But then, I’d never painted on tile, either. But they gave me their goop, some tile spacers, and I applied the mural above the stove. They just kept shaking their heads.

In all honesty, it did take a couple of tries to get the perfect sealer. The one that the paint manufacturer makes wasn’t durable enough. Off to Home Depot and more men shaking their heads at me. But I found a great sealer – can’t remember the name, now – applied 3 coats, and the mural has been up for 6 years now – still in pristine condition.

So, yes, you can paint on tile. It will last. However, I found this great site where you can do stick-on’s for tile.

I must confess I haven’t tried them yet, but I will soon. If anyone has used them, please let me know. I plan on turning a lot of my artwork into stickies.

p.s. I have to add this – Hubster did the color wash on the stove hood – just a little burnt umber mixed with Floetrol. Then I painted the grapevine. Have to give him credit!

I’m linking up to these wonderful blogs today. Go check out all the wonderful projects!









Colleen