High resolution vintage art and fine art by the download.
Being a lover of vintage art and needing vintage images to create my pastiches, as well as needing images for Vintage Mural, I found I had a hard time finding places to buy them in resolutions high enough for printing. Yes, they have places where you can buy a CDROM of vintage art (vintage travel posters, vintage labels, vintage seed packs, vintage tobacciana, etc) or the masters (like Monet or Van Gogh), but the images were nowhere near high resolution enough for printing. Further, the usage restrictions were so numerous they’d fill a tome fatter than War and Peace. Using one of these images for anything would make you look warily over your shoulder, worrying if you’d be sued by an army of attorneys for sending one as a gift print to your aunt Molly. In fact, commercial use of any kind is frowned upon and “strictly prohibited.” Even perfectly legal derivative works were “strictly prohibited” and the threat of God Himself descending from the sky for a scolding (not to mention hellfire and brimstone) felt like a very real possibility. And all this for images that were legally public domain, didn’t exceed 1200 pixels and weren’t even printable. Wow.
Still determined to find public domain fine art and vintage art I could actually print from, I visited the stockhouses, who did have many pieces I wanted but the prices were extremely high (over $500.00 each (sometimes *way* over) for the size and resolution I wanted) and the licensing fees and restrictions gave me a stomachache. So I decided to make these images available without usage restrictions, and in high resolution. In other words, I created the exact kind of site I had long looked for but quickly learned didn’t exist, Vintage Art Download.
Vintage Art Download
Vintage Art Download is not only an unprecedented resource for vintage or altered artists, but also for printers of canvas, framers, sellers of fine art prints, graphic designers, logo designers, web designers, historians, collectors, art enthusiasts, teachers, entrepreneurs, decoupagers, crafters, scrapbookers, ad agencies, marketing companies, jewelry designers…you get the idea. Most of the images are in 300 dpi (some even go up to 2400 dpi) and will print out easily at 8 x 10. For larger sizes, we urge customers to contact us. We have clients all over the world who use the art for many different applications, and the response has been overwhelming. The idea of truly high resolution images with no usage restrictions, people tell me, is so freeing and unique, that they love shopping there, and we get an unusually high level of repeat and word-of-mouth customers.
People who really care about getting exceptional quality prints will love the site. Here are some of the different types of images we have available, and we’re always adding new art constantly:
Alphonse Mucha, Autumn
Christmas Vintage
Van Gogh, Cafe Terrace at Night
Vintage Seed Packs
Vintage Ladies
Art Deco Coffee Mugs in all different colors
Checkerboard. Polka Dots. Diamonds. Stripes. In all different colors like Perfectly Pink, Peachy, Robins Egg Blue, Lime Green and Canary Yellow. Each porcelain mug comes in its own white sturdy giftbox, and they are microwave safe. You can put them in the dishwasher, but if you want them to last, I would handwash them.
When I decided to do my kitchen art deco, I painted it Pepto Bismol pink and had a black and white checkerboard floor installed. I wanted to have hanging coffee mugs to match the art deco feel, so I designed these mugs. Aren’t they yummy? I love ‘em.
Robins Egg Blue Art Deco Mugs
Lime Art Deco Mugs
Pink Art Deco Mugs
Canary Art Deco Mugs
If you want a special custom color, we can do that as well. That’s why we’re Color Bakery, it’s our calling card and what we do best.
What kind of tiles should I use for my tile backsplash or mural?
The most frequently-asked question I get from our customers is the kind of tiles they should use for their new custom art backsplash, tile wall mural, tile border or floor.
Ceramic Tile Mural,
First, let’s talk about standard custom imaged tile sizing: the standard sizes available for custom-imaged tile are: 4.25″, 4.00″ (tumbled stone only), 6″, 8″, and 12″. 6″ x 6″ tile is the most frequently used size for tile murals. One would use larger sizes for bigger spaces. I personally don’t recommend 4.25″ tile for mural work, unless you space demands it and you are not covering a large area–it will look way too busy otherwise. So your mural must mathematically be in increments of these numbers, as we don’t cut the tiles and they really shouldn’t be cut.
Invariably, the first thing I will ask my customer is where in the home the tile is going to be installed, because that will impact my answer to a certain degree. If the mural is going to be splashed with hot cooking grease and be installed in a busy area that tends to get dirty (like behind a stove), my recommendation would be glass–and that’s because the cleanup is by far the easiest. Would other tiles work behind a stove? Sure. But they won’t be as maintenance-free as glass.
First, for full disclosure purposes, I must confess to having a preference when it comes to tile, especially tile with my art on it. My first choice is glass. Why? A few reasons, the most compelling one being aesthetic. You can’t touch glass when it comes to beauty and jaw-dropping impact. Ceramic and tumbled stone are beautiful, but glass—glass sings on a stage all its own. Glass receives color magnificently, so it is the perfect choice for artwork that is rich with color. In addition, unlike other types of tiles we custom print, the image is printed on the back–not the front–of the glass. That means you are looking through the glass to see the image, and the effect is reminiscent of gazing through a very still pool of water. Glass also cleans up very easily–a regular glass cleaner will work just fine, and the image won’t be impacted at all, since it will never touch your hands or your cleaning fluid. Another powerful reason: glass does not require grout. No muss, no fuss, and no dingy grout to scrub in the future. Now, while we’re on the subject of grout, that is personal taste. Ceramic does not require grout, and neither does glass–but tumbled stone does. We’ll talk about that in a bit. “But won’t the glass break?” an interior decorator once asked my frustrated husband, who had spent an hour and a half on the phone with her as she kept asking the same questions over and over. “Not unless you have a habit of standing there and swinging a sixteen pound sledgehammer at it,” he said, and we heard giggling in the background from the prospective buyer herself. This glass is pretty tough; I’ve accidentally dropped these tiles many times (yes, I am a bit of a klutz) and they almost never scratched, chipped or broke. Was I lucky? Sure. But this glass is 1/4″ thick with beveled edges and you have to work pretty hard at smashing them up.
Glass Tile Mural by Color Bakery (custom designed art)
If there is a downside to glass, it tends to have a sleek, modernish look. For those who really want an old-world, vintage, antique flavor glass is probably not going to be their best choice. Tumbled stone (tumbled marble, tumbled porcelain) will be more appropriate.
Tumbled stone tends to be slightly off-white, and the colors will be impacted by that. This will result in an antiqued, slightly muted finish that is wonderful for old style classic paintings by the masters, vintage art or photography, retro patterns, etc. What is important to remember about tumbled stone is that it is real stone, and stone is imperfect. It has cracks, jagged edges, crevices, chipped corners. If you’re into perfection, you should not opt for tumbled stone. If you love a vintage, antiqued, earthen look, you will adore it, and you will find those flaws add to, not detract from, the beauty of the tile. If you want “The Last Supper“ or Van Gogh’s “Olive Grove” on tumbled stone, you will be thrilled with the aged, classic effect.
The Three Graces in tumbled stone
A less expensive alternative to both glass and stone is ceramic tile. Ceramic comes in three different finishes: matte, satin matte and high gloss. I heartily recommend satin matte because matte is a bit dull and looks a bit unfinished; high gloss can blind you with glare and, if you look at it the wrong way, it’ll scratch. And boy, you’ll notice it. Satin matte is the best choice, not too glossy but has a nice, satiny subtle finish that enriches the art without overpowering it. Aesthetically, ceramic is clean and modern looking, but not overly so. It has a bright white surface so the colors will reproduce beautifully.
Now that we’ve covered tile choices, let’s talk about artwork. If you are choosing a pattern for a backsplash or a tile border, it makes sense to try to match your color scheme and overall decor by choosing an art piece (or having us design custom art just for you) that matches. But if you are choosing a piece of art, I would urge you to choose a piece you love and not worry one whit about matching your decor. If you choose art based on the color scheme and not the quality of the artwork or how it makes you feel when you look at it, I feel you are doing yourself and your personal space a great disservice. Art is art; it shouldn’t have to match your walls or your kitchen counter or your wallpaper. So what if the sky has aqua in it and you don’t have any aqua in your kitchen? Art is not another element of your color and design scheme, it is a deeply personal expression and when you treat it as such, the end result surpasses all expectations. Drapes and carpet need to match and complement each other; not a piece of art, which is what a tile mural, after all, is.
A tile mural or backsplash can totally transform a room, it can become its most beautiful focal point. It will give you great pleasure for many years to come. Keeping that in mind, choose your art with your heart, not with your paint swatch card. 
Want to learn more about our custom tile murals? Please visit our Mural Page on the Color Bakery website.
Open Thread: Your Questions for Color Bakery
Do you have a question about our art or products? Would you like some assistance or need something explained or clarified? Whether you are a Color Bakery customer, an artist or photographer who is interested in custom printing of your work, or just need some help with a home decor project, post here. Are you interested in purchasing a certain product with a certain image on it? Here is the place to ask.
The best place to get an overview of Color Bakery services is on our FAQ page. But if you don’t see the answer there, post to me here and I’ll do my best to help. So post away, we’re here to answer your questions.
When is Stained Glass better than Stained Glass?
Stained glass is absolutely beautiful; I have always loved it, the beautiful glass shards pulsing and swirling with vibrant color; the silver or black lead framing each swirly piece of glassy goodness. When I was a wet-behind-the-ears sales exec in a New York City advertising agency, I took my first big commission check and bought the lamp of my dreams: a Tiffany hanging lamp. Swirls of purples and greens and blues softly lit from behind (what my mother used to call “Pucci Colors” after the famous 1960′s Mod fashion designer Emilio Pucci) still grace my dining room table to this day.
But stained glass is quite limited in its application. Other than lamps, hanging pieces and stained glass windows, the applications pretty much end there. And it’s not inexpensive, either. Even a small stained glass ornament or decorative piece can cost hundreds of dollars. So I decided to experiment with creating “stained glass” digitally so I would be able to make “stained glass” and print it wherever I wanted it: on my wall, as a glass clock, on tiles, as a glass cutting board, as a glass coaster set. I wanted to use our special printing technology–what we use in Color Bakery to make our ceramic, glass and stone tiles–and get that unique stained glass look for *all* our products. The trick was to make the image appear not only luminescent like real glass, but also give it that special texture and beveled depth. After a lot of time, patience and experimentation, I developed a technique that I believe worked very well. Judge for yourself and tell me what you think
When I use this digital art technique for art creation and print on glass, the effects are amazing–it really does look like stained glass. And if you light it from behind, you will still have enough translucence and luminescence for that signature stained glass colored glow. Obviously, glass is the best substrate (or surface) for this kind of art. So, most of the time, our customers order them on glass tile, glass clocks, glass suncatchers and glass cutting boards–and we consistently get stunning, realistic results. But what’s really cool is that it doesn’t have to stop there. We’ve printed these “stained glass” art pieces on everything: ceramic tiles, table placemats and napkins, tote bags, porcelain jewelry, coffee mugs, couch throws, etc. It’s a wonderful juxtaposition of textures when you take stained glass and put it on a non-glass surface, as the effect is beautifully unexpected, like mixing velvet, lace and burlap 
Here are some product photos of Color Bakery’s Stained glass art. If you would like to see the full Stained Glass Gallery, click here. Click here to see the art on textured, tempered glass which is especially made for floors (won’t break) and is scratch resistant.
Copper Butterflies, Stained Glass Art Nouveau Iron Frame
Art Nouveau Parabolas Glass Mural
Art Nouveau Peacock Pattern Tote Bag
Vintage Pastiche (Collage) Art
The woman who raised me—not my mother, but my father’s girlfriend of thirty years–had some interests that confounded me, especially when I was a young girl. For example, one of her favorite things to do was to visit cemetaries and read the old gravestones. She found the environment and the ornate, old, carved stones beautiful, and the environment calming. My father enjoyed it, too.
Old, Ornate Gravestone
They would muse about the names of the dead, wonder what kind of people they were, how they died. They would be saddened by the children’s graves and talk about why they were taken so young, yet the experience was mostly a peaceful and fascinating one for them. The years of silence would wash over them like a warm cloud; it was easy to imagine they were walking around in a different time, as there is something about a graveyard that defies time. Graveyards laugh at time, it has no effect on them. They will be there long after we all are gone, with their quiet stillness and overgrown trees and calm shade and fresh dirt.
Her love of things old didn’t stop there. She would drag my father to antique stores and old house auctions and flea markets, looking for very old photographs in beautiful frames, pictures of strangers to hang on her wall. As a child, I couldn’t understand why she’d want strangers on her wall. These unsmiling, solemn faces, the strange clothing, the unfamiliar features, the dark sepia tones, the tears, rips, fades and stains– what did she want with them? What did she want with some stern, unsmiling woman with an out-of-date hairstyle and buttoned-up dress, staring grimly at some forgotten, invisible photographer?
Ahhh, but now I understand, Joanie. I love those same photos, and I, too, now collect and cherish them.
One of my favorite things to do with such photos is to bring them to life again by creating a fantasy environment for them to live in. It may be a painting mixed with other paintings or my photography, or bits and pieces of art scraps and patterns that I have made. I call them Vintage Pastiches because they are a huge conglomeration of many different elements, and they require many layers. Each layer may be blended differently with varying opacities, curves, channels and hues; I may take my photography and patterns or other art pieces I’ve made–and even old works by the masters– and mix them all together in varying ways. Some people call this “altered art”, or “ATC’s” but for my technique, I’d rather call them pastiches because that is more accurate. A pastiche can take anywhere from five to forty hours to create.
I started to collect vintage and fine art years ago, taking them from old, yellowed books and magazines that are falling apart. I retouch, restore and enlarge them before I incorporate them into a pastiche. In fact, I have many of these images available online for other artists to use for their own artwork.
Some artists do this by hand with scissors and glue; others do it digitally, like with an art program such as Photoshop. I am a digital artist, but I can definitely see the purity of working with paper and inhaling the wonderful, nostalgic smell of glue.
Here are some of my more popular pastiches, all available on Color Bakery. If you have any questions about them or would like to try making them yourself, and would like to ask questions, log in and post. I’d love to see your vintage art, too! As with all Color Bakery art, these pieces are available on all our products. They make fabulous, funky tote bags, glass clocks, porcelain jewelry and decorative tiles. The pastiches with children are especially fun for children’s rooms, too.
Art Nouveau Tile Patterns
I make no secret of my love of “La Belle Epoch”, or “The Beautiful Era” of Art Nouveau. When it comes to home decor, fashion, art and design, the age of Art Nouveau is by far my favorite. Even my favorite artists are from that era: Alphonse Mucha in particular epitomizes the beauty of Art Nouveau.
Although I have made many different patterns in many different styles for Color Bakery’s product line (as always, any image can be ordered on any product we make), art nouveau is always my favorite, and the most fun for me to make. All those swirls and parabolas and stylized floral sweeps are just so rich looking and beautiful without being pompous, and it never goes out of style.
What is a “pattern”, exactly? A pattern is simply an image or design that repeats itself. In tile, that means each tile would have the same design and would flow seamlessly when mounted next to one another.
When it comes to custom art tiles, patterns serve a special purpose: they are especially useful for small, narrow spaces, i.e., spaces where a traditional sized tile mural or backsplash wouldn’t fit…like a narrow area on top of a fireplace opening, a narrow area above the kitchen counter or stove, etc. Patterns are also wonderful for wall borders:either on top of the wall next to the ceiling, or waist-high borders for mid-walls.
Here are a few new Art Nouveau patterns I made and are available on Color Bakery.
Autumn in Vermont
Bennington Fall by Mindy Sommers
As a native New Yorker (Noo Yawk Uh), one of the things I love the most about Vermont is the magical colors of autumn. It looks like it’s right out of a Lucky Charms cereal box; never have I seen such saturated eggplants, vermilions, ambers, hunter greens and spicy oranges that weren’t straight out of a paint can. The mountains, the trees, look like they were splashed by some mad painter with a million brushes. Vermont in October can make you really wonder about intelligent design. Such color could never be an accident, could it?
Autumn Splendor by Mindy Sommers
So I was running around with my camera during “peak time” as I do every year, and I decided to design something special for our Thanksgiving table. My husband and I are very childlike when it comes to themes and holidays; we both get supreme pleasure out of decorating the house for fall: we strew vermilion and amber silk leaves all around the house; the table has a centerpiece with candles, leaves, pinecones and all different kinds of mini squash, pumpkins and those wild colored corn. I brought out a beautiful piece of large fabric from my late Mom; it has all the colors of harvest and looks so yummy on the dining table. All I needed were placemats. I groused about this to Glen. “Uh, honey, why don’t you just make some? That’s what we do, isn’t it?” Du’h. Yep, I forgot we print on canvas cotton placemats, so I made this design for Thanksgiving. I sent it to some friends and they suggested I make it available on Color Bakery, so that’s just what I did. “Autumn Harvest” is available for custom printing on all our products. What do you think? If you would like to order your own placemats and matching napkins, just click the image.
Vermont Harvest Placemat
Art canvas is so nineties.
Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against art canvas for displaying fine art. I especially like gallery-wrapped canvas, which Color Bakery carries exclusively. Our gallery wrapped canvas is wrapped on three sides, giving it a thick and 3-dimensional effect. But canvas does have its limitations. First, it can tear or rip easily. It may yellow or fade with time. For people who really love color, I mean revel in it, the only way to go is high gloss Art Board Panels.
Our high gloss panels are a very new product, they have not been out very long. They are made of hardwood, and are coated with a very high gloss finish. The effect is quite startling; the inks hit the surface in a crescendo of color. Like gallery-wrapped canvas, the hardboard high gloss art panels have the three dimensional effect, as they are over a half an inch thick–so they pop off the wall. And no, the photo below doesn’t do it justice. Grabbing that glossy finish in a photo is difficult without getting glare.
Now, when it comes to tile, I actually prefer matte ceramic tiles to high gloss. Personally, I find matte richer and classier. Whenever a customer asks me what I think about high gloss ceramic tile, I kind of clear my throat and gently suggest satin matte tile. (High gloss tiles are so shiny that making a mural out of them is risky; you not only get major glare, but if you breathe on it it will scratch. I would never recommend high gloss for tile murals). But when it comes to hardboard, there is something about this particular high gloss finish that makes this product incredibly beautiful, and it wouldn’t work in a matte. What’s also great about the wood art panels is that they are so sturdy– they will not tear or rip or break; and they aren’t that heavy, either, so those of you with old walls won’t be nervous about destroying them. And they come ready to hang, too. Something about the coating process and the way the wood receives ink really revs up the color. Our customers love them, and the ones who have bought them tell me they won’t go back to canvas.
Hardboard Art Panel
The Zodiac goes Art Nouveau.
After having created the Dreaming in Color Luman Deck, I have loved the idea of doing an art series. It’s been in my head now for years to do my own interpretation of the Zodiac, remaining true to the symbolism behind each of the Signs, but with my own take on it. I wanted to bring the personality of each sign into each image yet keep a common flavor throughout.
I just finished the Zodiac Art Nouveau Series, and all the images are available for all Color Bakery products. I know a lot of people may not want the Zodiac Sign keyword on the artwork, so we’ve made it optional. Here are a few of the images, as well as thumbnails of the full series:
Zodiac Series Art Nouveau-Full Series
Scorpio, Zodiac Art Nouveau Series
Gemini, Zodiac Series
Aquarius, Color Bakery Zodiac Series
Here is “Aquarius” (directly above) as a tile mural in our ornate wrought iron tray.
Here are some more products with Zodiac Art; click the image to purchase the item. You can choose from any of the Zodiac Signs for your custom made item.
Leo Tote Bag
Gemini Custom Tile Mural End Table
