Realistic Stoneware Butterflies for floor, wall, hearth, backsplash or pool
I specialize in recreating identifiable leaves as functional, durable stoneware tile. My collection of molded leaves now represents nearly every New England tree species! During leaf season I collect and preserve hundreds of leaves to be used for winter tile making. I only work in durable high-fired stoneware clays and glazes. Stoneleaf tile can be used indoors or out; on the floor, wall, back splash, pool, hearth or anywhere you would use commercial square tile. 
I also make other ‘non-square’ tile including shells, sea animals, woodland critters, dog breed tile, and snowflakes. Email me if you are interested in custom shaped tile for your next tile installation. 
There is always a nice selection of tile leaves, deco critters, doorbells, ornaments, and jewelry in my Etsy shop. Click on the link below to visit!
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Citrus Butterfly & Emerald Swallowtail |
Who doesn't love butterflies? I was looking for something new to complement all of my stoneware leaves and came up with the idea of making identifiable stoneware butterflies and moths. So far I have 16 species, the big moths being especially cool.
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Golieth & Cecropia Moths |
I only make strong, functional, high fired tile so I chose stoneware clays and glazes to make my butterflies. Stoneware is not typically used for this type of detailed work but the butterfly tile had to dovetail naturally into a leaf mosaic. Each piece was carefully hand painted and then fired to extremely high stoneware temperatures.
All of the individual butterflies and moths can be viewed on my website:
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Luna Moth, Cairns Birdwing & Green Swallowtail |
The first three photographs show butterflies and leaves that are glazed within the same color family. I used neutral leaves to surround the blue butterflies in the last picture.
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Emerald Swallowtail, Blue Morpho, Eastern Tailed Blue butterfly, Blue Mountain Ulysses, Indian Leaf Butterfly |
This kitchen back splash was designed using colorful stoneware leaf tile. It was a winter commission so many of these leaves were made using my collection of realistic scaled molds of identifiable leaves.
I made over 40 shells, hatching sea turtles, flounder, horseshoe crab & lobster tiles to create this delightful kitchen floor border.
A sliced mosaic pebble tile was used to fill in the spaces between shells.
Find a clay object in your kitchen. Do you know what it is? They all fall under the category of ceramics or pottery. True ceramics are clay based; without firin they will dissolve in water. The Yugo, Lexus & Jeep are all cars but most would agree that all cars are not created equal nor used with the same aim in mind. So lets clear up the mystery!
Porcelain
We have all heard of Porcelain and Bone China. The term ‘porcelain’ is derived from the word ‘kaolin’ which is a type of pure white clay. Porcelain is fired to extremely high temperatures making it perfectly vitreous or watertight. It is translucent and ideal for delicate high-end applications. Bone China is also a type of porcelain that is made using kaolin. As the name suggests, Bone China also contains bone ash made from burnt, ground up cow bones. The bone ash gives this porcelain a whiter, more translucent, expensive, and refined look. As a lifelong vegetarian I kind of like cows and tend to avoid things like ‘bone ash’, but that’s just me.
Stoneware All stoneware has the look and feel of hand made pottery. It has a high firing temperature of approximately 2200F making it durable, water resistant, oven safe, and suitable as floor tile or for structural and outdoor uses. Glaze is applied for decorative reasons but is not required to seal the clay. Stoneware usually has a textured feel and buff or natural speckled color. The glazes are typically warm earthy tones. It’s chip resistant and the color of the clay is uniform through the fired piece. It has a heavy, dense feel and the bottom of a fired piece will almost always be glaze free. Glazes flow during firing making the ware very difficult to duplicate.
