New Glow-in-the-Dark Mosaic Skull! Huge!

Here's my latest beast!  It's not as heavy as you might expect because it's a styrofoam base that I coated with thinset and mesh in 3 layers to form a hard shell over.  The eyes light up and flash red (there's a 2AA battery compartment at the base) and it glows that spooky neon blue! Yes it's for sale :) contact me!

 ^ ^ my band's practice room just happens to be a great place to photograph glow in the dark stuff ^ ^

 this is the underside looking up at it:

Roadhouse and the Big Lebowski tiles!

Here's my latest "Wise Men" tiles. The top one shows the character Dalton from the movie "Road House" played by Patrick Swayze. There's some pretty good quotes in this movie, but "pain don't hurt" has to be my favorite. Below is the Dude from the movie "The Big Lebowski" played by actor Jeff Bridges. Again, there's a ton of great quotes from this movie and this one was sort of a random pick. The quotes have to be rather short to put on one of these 4" x 4" tiles. The above tile from the scene where the henchman have just put the Dude's head in the toilet and can't understand why they've found a bowling ball in his bag.  Anyhow, if you're starting to think of your favorite movies and favorite quotes, and you're looking for a custom tile to capture it, look no further. Contact me at ladyindar@gmail.com to discuss.  Custom 4" x 4" Cinema Quote tiles are $40 plus shipping.

The eyes have it!

Maybe it's because I'm a tile maker, but whenever I'm in a thrift store I can't avoid the urge to buy any and all trivets or frames which might hold a tile.  I take them home, pop out the ugly thrift store tile that came glued into it and proceed to make tiles that will hopefully shrink to fit (I use a porcelain mix which has about 15% shrinkage rate in the kiln).  I kept finding pairs of tile frames so I was drawn to make some pairs of eyes to fit into them.  Here are two of my latest pairs.  They're for sale at Bootleg, a boutique in Chico, CA.  But don't hestitate to email me about custom tile eyes: ladyindar@gmail.com

Front page of the Sacramento Bee! Sweet!

Click this link to read the story of the giant gecko mosaic!
Sacramento Bee article: "Giant Gecko Grabs Attention"

Ai Jen Poo tile!

I made this tile for my workers-rights-enthusiast cousin for his birthday and I loved it so much I made one for myself!  I looked up leaders in workers rights and out of the top ten, she was the only female.  I messed up her eyes a bit,  his turned out better.  I often mail off tile gifts before I photograph them. d'oh! oh well, here's the one I kept for myself:

Custom Signature Tiles!

I made these custom signature tiles for Laurel True.  Half of them were in Haitian and half in English.  Contact me with ideas and questions!  Don't let your work go unsigned!  I have custom color glazes, shapes, alphabet stamps.

Curses!

I started exploring the Winter attitude that was overtaking me. Recession, depression, disinterest, malaise, and a general uninspired blah settled. And then I got it! The Cursory Mosaic line! I didn't get a lot of interest in these, which is perfect because they stem from overwhelming disinterest! But I still don't get it. These are groundbreaking! I'm sick of people always assuming mosaics are cute hobby based craft. I like toothy dragons and bears, obscenity, and revolution once in a while. Well, I hope I don't cut my own throat with these. There's a bunch more where these came from.

Fountain with mosaic inserts

I didn't get any pics of this beast grouted because my camera battery died on grout day. I'll get another chance at final pics when I go down to Elk Grove to install a few more blue bubble mosaics in the ground there by where the fountain is going. The dragonflies in the below pic went on the top piece for the fountain which is like a round cap that the water will flow out and down from. The great thing about mosaicking onto mesh is you can mosaic at home and then install them all at once. The guys at the cement plant were surprised to see me finish all of the mosaics in just a few hours!
Handmade tile swoops and signature tiles in a variety of green glazes. I have a few custom signature tile designs for sale in my Etsy shop, Rebel Tiles

Donor Tiles land safely in Haiti!

These carefully sized donor tiles were made to size because Laurel True (mosaic maestro magnifico) had left perfect oval holes in her mosaic to put them into later. She sent me some tracing paper sketches and they magically shrunk perfectly to size. Phew! Hooray! These can now be seen in the new Paul Farmer hospital in Mirebelais, Haiti. This is a really great project for a really deserving community. Partners in Health (PIH) offers free healthcare to those in need!

Xmas Mushroom Tile!

Here's my new mushroom tile just in time for Christmas! You can find it on my Etsy store where I put all of the new or misfit tiles that you can't find at rebeltiles.com. Check it out in my Etsy store here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/87713348/festive-red-and-white-xmas-mushroom-tile

The botanical mosaic mural at Magnolia Gift & Garden in Chico, CA!  It's done!  Come check it out and buy some beautiful plants and pottery while you're at it!

Black Panther!

Now she's done from head to foot! And for reals! Look at that tiled underside! Some day I'll get pics of it glowing in the dark (the teeth and folds)

My new mosaic video! 3 minutes of eye candy!

Finished the glow-in-the-dark shower mosaic!

Here it is with the lights out...And here's what it looks like during the day. Glow in the dark glass floats my boat. It makes me smile. Keep a look out for my glow in the dark mosaic exhibit later this year!

Awesome Lichtenstein mosaic!

Down by the waterfront in Barcelona, there is this giant sculpture by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein. The gray cement base is taller than me!

Spain Rules!!!!

I finally got to touch the mosaics at Park Guell up close! Here I am at Casa Batllo, another amazing Gaudi creation. I always loved the split glazed pots that ride up the edge of the roof like a beaded necklace. They call it the dragons back.

I seem to remember having a headache the day we visited the Sagrada Familia. It still was really amazing and beautiful with giant cement trees and stained glass. The mosaics were so high up you couldn't reach them or really even see them.

Barcelona church mosaics!

My husband and I went to Barcelona last November for our 10 year anniversary! We of course knew all about the Gaudi mosaics there, but what I didn't expect to find was an entire church covered in mosaics on top of the mountain within an amusement park. Tibidabo is an amazing old amusement park from the late 1800's. The above pic is one of the 6 or 7 mosaic covered niches on the first floor of the church. It's hard to tell they're even mosaic because they're so intricate!

Here is the entrance to the church with a large colorful arched mosaic over the door.

Here is part of the upstairs floor mosaic. It's funny, but we actually saw the entrance to the church and then walked up the long spiral steps outside to an overlook of the park. You can see all of Barcelona from up there and even the edge of the ocean. Then, without much thought, we decided to take a peek inside the church and so this was the first hint of greatness that we got. I had no idea that the amazing mosaics were actually downstairs!

It all starts with an idea...Circle Tile Backsplash!

My client called me from Texas and said he wanted a polka dotted circle tile backsplash. He gave me the color ideas and I came up with this sample board:
Then we signed a contract and off I go, glazin' dots like I do...

Then I glue them to fiberglass mesh in panels and the backsplash starts to take shape!

I can only hope he sends me pictures of the finished job after it's installed. I'm going to be shipping these babies away for good (sniff, sob) But what a cool kitchen he'll have!

Rainbow Trout: a work in progress

They asked me to do a rainbow trout. Poof! It's on it's way upstream. Sarah and I were getting a little cocky though after those huge Malibu animals were done. This fish seemed like a one day project. Oops. Not quite.