Art Paradise in Portugal

Tile Painting with Margarida Alberty 

We'll go through all the techniques of tile painting... it's great fun!

The portuguese style:

The designs have been punched with a needle and then we’ll go over them with a charcoal doll to print  the design onto the tile.
Normally it’s only blue that is used to paint it.
You can choose from a large variety of designs the ones you wish to print out.

The tracing style.

The tile is covered with dark paint (any color or colors) and then with a fine estilete you can draw whatever you wish. The trace will be white.

The transfer style

You choose any design from a book, magazine or even your drawing and you copy it to the tile with a charcoal pencil. Then you paint it as you wish and you can use all kinds of colors.

The 3 D style

You can paint anything on the tile and then ad and decorate with little or large pieces of broken tiles.

The stencil and rubber stamp style

You can use stencils and rubber stamps on the tiles and the images will come out just like on canvas or paper.

The glass style

You can draw what you like and then ad pieces of glass which will melt when it’s fired.
That leads you to unexpected forms.

The panel style

You can make a panel using a composition of 6, 9 and 12 tiles.

                          Free Style with collage of bits of broken tiles 

      After being painted, tiles must be fired in a huge oven at 1200 degrees centigrade to get their glaze!  

If you wish, I can take you to visit  this amazing factory !

Here are some tiles painted by the students... They came out really well....FREE STYLE! 

Many churches, old houses, fountains and railway stations are covered 

with beautiful hand-painted tiles.