The beauty of this series is that with black and white, you can use almost any accent color! Blues, purples, peaches, rose…all look fabulous with this series.

The full series can be seen on our Pattern Page.

Many customers love the idea of adding a tile mural to their home–whether it’s a kitchen cooktop backsplash, or a major art piece for their living room wall above their couch. What if you want to move, and take the mural with you? Or what if  you want the option of changing it out if you want to replace it with something else someday when redecorating? True, most murals are adhered directly to the wall, but they don’t have to be.

(An aside–did you know that you do NOT have to use grout to install a mural? It’s true! Grout is about personal taste, not necessity. Personally, I don’t love grout. It separates the tiles from each other and grout gets dirty. I’d rather bank the tiles closer together and use tile glue. We use E6000 tile glue).

Here is my suggestion, and many of our customers have done this with wonderful results. If the mural is not humongous (say, about three feet or less), you can buy a piece of hard wood at your local hardware store and mount the tiles on the hardwood. Leave a little space around it so you have enough room to mount the hardboard with nails or screws. (Make sure your walls are sturdy, this won’t work for weak, old homes with plaster walls…at the very least, make sure you find the beam!)  You can then paint the extra half inch or inch of wood to match your walls, or cover it with a lovely decorative trim. Walla! You now have a portable mural you can take with you when you move!

Shown below: “Languid Journeys” (recolored in blue, custom for a client), ceramic tile, courtesy of Alex in Hong Kong. (Click image to see full size).

RED
Red denotes assertiveness, dominance, power, attention, sexual energy, robust health, determination, passion, persistence, excitement, strength, aggression. Red increases enthusiasm, energy, engenders confidence, protects us from fear and anxiety.
Did you know? Red light is used to treat migraines; in China, it is associated with good luck and good fortune. Since blood is red, it is considered to be a symbol of life.

“I love red so much; I almost want to paint everything red.” - Alexander Calder

PINK
Pink denotes romance, lightheartedness, happiness, good health, serenity, friendliness, compassion, faithfulness, femininity, calmness. Pink is sensual without the aggression of red.
Did you know? Pink’s calming qualities make it a very easy color to live with; in fact, a documented experiment with prisons painting the walls pink in the 1970s proved successful in the calming of the inmates.

“Pink is just mauve trying to be purple.” -James M. Whistler

ORANGE
Fruits of the earth, congeniality, happiness, socializing, courage, success, enthusiasm, boldness, adventure, friendship, warmth, informality, welcoming, movement, energy.
Did you know? In  marketing, orange is used for packaging because it has a “freshness” appeal. Orange is often found in cafeterias and fast food restaurants because it has been proven to generate higher sales.

“There is no blue without yellow and without orange.” - Vincent Van Gogh

BROWN
Informality, solidity, authenticity, order, reliability, approachability, relaxation, stability, wholesomeness, earthiness,  masculinity.
Did you know? Chocolate brown and robin’s egg blue are a very popular Feng Shui color combination. Too, men are more likely to choose brown as their “favorite color”.

“God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” -Anne Sexton

YELLOW
Alertness, joy, optimism, confidence, stimulation, enthusiasm, playfulness, cheer, communicativeness, expression, intelligence, intellectual power, the sun.
Did you know? Yellow is an appropriate color for a room used for studying because it has a stimulating effect on the mind. Its intensity is also good for stairs and corridors that don’t receive natural light. Although yellow has become symbolic for caution or, semantically, cowardice, it is a joyous color that promotes freedom, inhibition and intellectual curiosity.  It enhances concentration, but can be unsettling if either overused or used in over-saturated tones.

“Yellow is capable of charming God.” -Vincent Van Gogh

GREEN
Nature, balance, freshness, relaxing, soothing, renewal, fertility, earth, compassion, prosperity, prestige, growth, abundance, money, vitality, harmony, efficiency.
Did you know? Leonardo DaVinci declared that green was the color to represent water. In addition, green is most people’s second favorite color, second only to blue.

“Absolute green is the most restful color, lacking any undertone of joy, grief, or passion. On exhausted men this restfulness has a beneficial effect, but after a time it becomes tedious.” -Wassily Kandinsky

AQUA
Soothing, crisp, dynamic, active, imagination, clairvoyance, creative adaptability.
Did you know? Many consider aqua to be the definitive color symbol of the art deco movement.

TURQUOISE
Refreshment, idealism, control, compassion, clarity, peace, sophistication, retro, cool, imaginative, innovation, youth; name is based on the stone.
Did you know? In holistic medicine, turquoise’s calming effect on patients is used to treat panic attacks. Similarly, hospitals use turquoise on the walls for a calming effect. Like aqua, turquoise is prevalent in art deco. Too much turquoise promotes aloofness.

“The tones of gray, pale turquoise and pink will prevail.” -Christian Dior

BLUE
To love and be loved, high regard, knowledge, authority, trust, serious, responsibility, peace, social status, caring, health, intuition, caring, happiness, calmness, honesty, loyalty, integrity.
Did you know? Fashion consultants recommend wearing blue to job interviews because it symbolizes loyalty. People are more productive in blue rooms. Studies show weightlifters are able to handle heavier weights in blue gyms. The majority of people are likely to say blue is their favorite color.

“Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of delight.” -John Ruskin

PURPLE
Spiritual advancement, sacredness, eccentricity, wealth, creativity unleashed, passion, higher consciousness, vision, regal, power, respect, dignity, luxury, mystery, royalty.
Did you know? Only the most expensive dyes were used to make the color purple, which is one reason it is associated with wealth and power. Synonymous with royalty, purple is often preferred by artists, spiritualists and deeply creative people. Purple is the ultimate bridge between warm and cold, as it is comprised of red and blue, two opposite primary colors–making it the “ideal” color, the blending of Yin and Yang of the spectrum.

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” - Alice Walker

LAVENDER
Romantic, imaginative, elegance, fantasy, gentility, grace, preciousness, nostalgia, romance, some of the characteristics of purple but without the mystery or level of passion.
Did you know? The complementary color for lavender is olive. Lavender is considered the color of intellectual thought as opposed to action.

“Add a drop of lavender to milk, leave town with an orange, and pretend you’re laughing at it.” -Bill Bailey

MAGENTA
Outrageous, healing,  imaginative, innovative, daring, anti-conventional, anti-authority.
Did you know? At the expressive level, used in artistry, where magenta is less aggressive and more spiritual than red, it is more realistic than purple. It is volatile, optimistic, and affectionate, creating a feeling of satisfaction and  self-respect, while being imaginative and innovative as well. Ivory, black, warm gray and ivory work particularly well with magenta.

“I’m like, hey girl, magenta! and she’s like, oh, you mean purple! and she goes off on her purple thing, and I’m like, no – I want magenta!” -John Mayer

GOLD
Illumination, wisdom, prestige, expensive , good health, optimism, personal power, success, worldly riches.
Did you know? In Elizabethan times, permission to wear the color gold was decreed by law.

“The color of gold is gold. That’s why it’s called gold.” -Unknown

SILVER
Prestige, richness, scientific, distinguished, earthiness, abundance, the awakening of the cosmic mind.
Did you know? Silver is the best-selling car color in North America. Dorothy’s ruby slippers in “The Wizard of Oz” were originally silver (as per Baum’s book) until Louis Meyer decided a ruby red would be better.

BLACK
Elegance, power, protection, control, authority, dignity, sophistication, seduction, mystery, solitude, nobility, elegance, that which is hidden.
Did you know? Black is the absence of all color and light. Black is known to provide freedom from distraction. Because black color brings the feng shui energy of grounding and stability, its best use indoors should be not much higher than the eye level. Black is one of the boldest, most powerful colors; and the most intense against a white background.  Because of this, designers and advertisers often use just black and white for greater effect, despite all the other colors available.

“I’ve been forty years discovering that the queen of all colors is black.” - Pierre-Auguste Renoir

GRAY
Brainy, class, efficiency, sophisticated, confidence.
Did you know? Completely colorblind people can only see black, white and shades of gray. Gray is known to blend well with almost every color, but is especially lovely with aqua, purple, pink, red.

“The color of truth is gray.” -Andre Gide

WHITE
Virtue, fertility, cleanliness, status, prosperity, innocence, peace, silence, wholeness.
Did you know? In the West, white is the color for weddings. In the East, white is the color of mourning and funerals. Unlike black, which is the total absence of color, white contains every color in the spectrum.

“White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. God paints in many colors; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.” -G.K. Chesterton

First, let’s talk about standard custom imaged tile sizing: the standard sizes available for custom-imaged tile are: 4.25″ square, 4.00″ square (tumbled stone only), 6″ square, 8″ square, and 12″ square. 6″ x 6″ tile is the most frequently used size for tile murals. One might consider using larger tile 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. So your mural must mathematically be in increments of these numbers.

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 a backsplash 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? Positively. But they won’t be as maintenance-free as glass.

For full disclosure purposes, I must confess to having a preference when it comes to tile, especially tile with my own 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 down to the art below. 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.

Glass Tile

While we’re on the subject of glass tiles, Color Bakery has a special art technique which mimics the full effect of stained glass. When we print it on glass, it’s very much like the real thing but without the expense and limitations of stained glass. In fact, this art can also be printed on ceramic tile and it will still have a stunning, stained-glass feel. (See images below, click on image for large size).

Stained Glass Artwork on Glass Tile

Stained Glass Artwork on Ceramic Tile

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 client 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.

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 slightly impacted by that–they will be less saturated. 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.

A less expensive alternative to both glass and stone is ceramic tile. Ceramic comes in three different finishes: matte, satin and high gloss. I heartily recommend satin 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 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 doesn’t always have to match your walls or your wallpaper. So what if the sky has aqua in it and you don’t have any aqua in your living room? Art is not always another element of your color and design scheme, it can be 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 some tile murals may be. is. The bottom line? Only you can decide whether the tile piece you are buying is part of your decor or is meant to be a piece of art. Whatever the case may be, Color Bakery will work with you to either select an image or create a new one that brings your vision to life on tile.

Color Bakery also makes custom tile floors. Floors require a special floor tile that is scratch resistant and can receive weight safely. Floor tiles come  in tempered/textured glass, ceramic and porcelain. They are available in 8 x 8 and 12 x 12 tiles. With floors, you can be very creative–you can either have a mural (one image divided) or you can use a pattern. Or, you can alternate one pattern or coordinating patterns throughout solid colored tiles. In other words, you can use them as the full floor or merely accent tiles. Below is a custom tile mural floor we created for a customer who requested a custom Zodiac wheel:

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. Color Bakery’s calling card is transformative tile projects of the most customized kind. Please contact us if you’d like to learn more.

Sandi, a new client, delivered a kitchen tile design challenge to us recently; she had some tile space in her brand new kitchen that she wanted to cover over. I believe the painted tile designs came with her new house and she didn’t like the artwork but she didn’t want to rip out tile, either.  She told me that she felt that the kitchen needed some strong accent color. I couldn’t agree with her more–the kitchen badly needed some color, it was basically all white. She wasn’t really sure how she wanted to approach a backsplash and some accent tiles, so she came to us for ideas, custom artwork and custom tiles. (Addendum: the client just emailed me, and this is what she wrote, verbatim:)

Hey Mindy, I had meant to write to you sooner, but life got away from me. We just moved into the new house and things are EVERYWHERE! I got the tiles and mural this week and they are BEAUTIFUL!!!! I am really excited to have them installed as they are going to make this kitchen pop. I will send you pictures of the before and after once it is all done. We have a few weeks to wait as I am having some of the cabinet doors remade. I don’t want to start the work until we can finish it, so it may be closer to the end of July or August at the rate this unpacking is going

Thanks again for your workmanship- this is truly one of a kind and I love it! I’m so glad I found you online.
Sandi

When we first started talking about her kitchen, asked me if she could cover the old tiles with new ones, and I told her yes, she could. Many of our clients have done so successfully. Our ceramic deco tiles are thin enough not to jut out too much, and in fact, if installed properly it can give a stunning three dimensional look that is even more dramatic than flat tiling. She was concerned that the tiles had finished edges (I assured her they did), and then when she realized the possibilities, she couldn’t contain her excitement. Below, see a photo of the three spaces she wanted to cover and transform with custom tile (click on image for full size):

After some discussion, Sandi and I decided to do an 18″ x 18″ ceramic tile mural using 6″ x 6″ tiles for the backsplash, ensuring the mural would not need any cutting/trimming. Banking both sides of the mural would be two strips of 4.25″ ceramic tiles going down in rows of four, flanking the mural. The flanking strips would be complementary patterns that worked with the main mural. Two of the tiles *might* require some trimming to fit beneath the cabinets, but they would not be part of the mural, just individual tiles.

As to the art, Sandi fell in love with a very old, vintage French poster from 1910 that we offer on Vintage Mural. The size was wrong and the colors were wrong. Sandi wanted bold cobalt blues, reds, yellows. She had a square space, but the image was rectangular. That was a problem. Cropping it would look bad, the eggs would be chopped in half. On top of that, the image was extremely old and damaged, so we really had our work cut out for us. (See image below)

Below, you will see the vintage French poster totally transformed, and redone to fit into a square space. It was also extensively retouched and recolored. Flanking the sides of the mural are custom designed accent tiles to coordinate with the main image: (click image for bigger size)

Finally, here are the two strips of custom accent tiles we designed from scratch for her other two horizontal spaces to cover the floral tiles (see below, click image for full size):

And that is how Color Bakery transformed a kitchen space. When the tiles go up, we will post photos here! If you have any questions or would like your own custom transformative tile project for your home, contact us.

As with all Color Bakery artwork, this piece is available for custom printing on all our products. When it comes to tiles and tile murals, the beauty of this style of art (called a “Nine Patch” in the biz) is that it lends itself to any layout–whether it’s square or rectangular, the image never needs to be cropped…it can just be arranged to size.

Want this art on a poster, framed print or canvas? Click here.