Hand-Painted Tile, Popular in ‘20s, Making a Comeback

Mimi Hogan wanted the tile in her kitchen to match the cheerful colors in the floral design on her new china. Lynn Tomalas wanted something reflecting her interest in bunnies because “they just give me a real nice, warm feeling.”

Both women found exactly what they wanted for their homes in custom hand-painted ceramic tile.

A large bay window in Hogan’s kitchen and an area over her cooktop are now framed by tiles with delicate, intertwined flowers in shades of rose, yellow and blue. And Tomalas feels good every time she walks into her kitchen and sees the tile mural above her cooktop. It features three bunnies romping in an English garden scene.

Hand-painted tile, which was popular in the 1920s, is enjoying a resurgence in Orange County.

The tile is being used in kitchens and bathrooms, on floors in entryways, on the face of fireplaces and on decorative murals. It is being used outdoors for addresses and garden murals and in barbecue and spa areas.

Generally, a homeowner purchases the tile and brings it to an artist for painting. The cost of the tile itself varies and may range from as little as $2.50 a square foot to as much as $18 a square foot.

The cost of having tile painted depends on the intricacy of the design but usually ranges from $5 to $20 for each tile. Murals, which continue across several rows of tile, cost $250 to $500 and up.

Once the tile is painted and fired, the homeowner hires an installer to follow the artist’s directions and lay the tile. Installation costs depend on the number of tiles required and how complex the installation is, according to Charlie Ognibene of C.O. Tile Co. in San Clemente. He says installation in a kitchen requiring 75 to 100 square feet of tile with a simple design might range from $1,200 to $1,600. Installation of a tile mural would be an additional $100 to $200. A complex tile installation requiring extra time to match intricate designs might cost up to $2,000 or more, according to Ognibene.

Some people want designs that match their wallpaper or drapery fabric. Others, such as Hogan and Tomalas, both Lido Isle residents, may want something very personal.

“My clients are people with special needs and tastes that can’t be met by mass-produced tile markets,” says Nancy Dawson of Handpainted Tiles in Santa Ana Heights.

“What started as a quiet trend some years ago has become a boom. Decorative painting is back in vogue now. People are discovering the charm of this almost-lost art form,” says Dawson, who runs her business out of her home with partner Mary Jane Blackwell.

Hogan worked with Dawson to create a vine design for her white tile to match her china. The design that frames the kitchen bay window and an area over her cooktop is also picked up in painted tiles on a work station in the center of the kitchen.

Hogan also had Dawson paint pillow tops in a similar design for the adjoining family room. Then Hogan selected what she calls a “nondescript” white wallpaper with tiny green dots for the kitchen so that it wouldn’t overpower the tile or the white cabinets. The tile painting for Hogan’s kitchen cost about $500.

In addition, hand-painted tiles were used in one bathroom of the Hogan home, and Dawson painted an ivy-and-flower design in a china sink in another bathroom--using patterns that match the wallpaper. (Sink painting, which costs $350 to $500, is an extra requested by many people having hand-painted tiles installed, Dawson says.)

Tomalas, an interior designer, saw hand-painted tiles as a way to personalize her home. “There’s no other kitchen that will ever be exactly like this,” she says. “And I think that hand painting, if it’s done well and doesn’t look amateurish, just gives a real richness.”

Tomalas also worked with Dawson to create the tile for her kitchen, which has glossy white cabinets and a split-brick floor.

Tile on the back splash above the sink is painted to coordinate with the wallpaper, which is white with clusters of green ivy leaves and delicate pink flowers. A few of the tiles are painted with ivy clusters, while others have only tiny green dots. One tile above the sink shows a bunny peeking from behind some grass. Items from Tomalas’ bunny collection sit in the bay window above it.

The counters have a green border along the edge with all-white tile on the surface, except for the tile on which an ivy cluster and the names of the entire family are painted. All of this coordinates with colors in the bunny mural above the cooktop.

And Tomalas didn’t stop there. She wanted hand-painted tile in three bathrooms, too. In one bathroom, she had hand-painted sailboat tiles in the tub area replaced with tiles decorated with bouquets of pink and yellow flowers encircled with a blue ribbon. The border tile has a blue rope design with a tiny fleur-de-lis to match the wallpaper.

When Joan Linder of Joan Linder Interior Designs in Newport Beach wanted something special in tile for a balcony in her home, she went to Elaine Cain of Decorative Tile in La Habra Heights.

Cain created an outside mural of cockatiels in pinks, mauves and greens. Linder considers Cain’s work a tile version of fine art. Her mural, she says, is “like having birds in the garden. It’s beautiful.”

Cain’s work is different from that of many tile painters. Most tile painters create a totally smooth surface. Cain prefers to have texture. She layers paint and uses a special wax to help create indentations and depth.

Her daughter, Amanda Cain, recently completed a striking calla lily mural. It is painted on black tile with white flowers and red leaves. A geometric border of gray, red and white finishes off this piece.

Elaine Cain’s favorite work is a series she calls Kabuki Rabbit, featuring a long-eared gray rabbit in traditional Japanese scenes. She also does a series of single tiles in floral or Southwest motifs and vegetables--pea pods, carrots, radishes and leeks--that almost look sculpted on the tile. However, she prefers to do murals, which she says are becoming increasingly popular.

Kent Roberts, an Irvine interior designer, had three 4-by-7-foot outdoor tile murals created for a home that had a terrace with a 120-foot-long expanse of stucco wall broken only by glass doors.

“It really made a big difference,” Roberts says. “And the nice thing about tile is, it’s safe to use it at the desert and the beach, where it takes tremendous sun abuse.”

Inside homes, Roberts’ clients usually prefer to use hand-painted tile as a decorative accent, sprinkling a few hand-painted tiles among plain-colored tiles. This less-dramatic approach, he says, will probably make the house easier to sell and can achieve a custom look for less money than a more extensive treatment.

However, Stephane Johnston, a Placentia tile artist, thinks that “sprinkling” isn’t effective. “I don’t really like doing individual tiles that are scattered throughout a kitchen, because the eye doesn’t know where to go,” she says. She prefers a centerpiece, such as a basket with flowers, accompanied by other small groupings of painted tiles.

Johnston also says it’s important to buy quality tile for hand painting. And she notes that anyone laying ceramic tile in an entryway needs to install a sub-flooring first rather than putting the tile directly over a cement foundation. Otherwise, the tile may crack.

It’s also important for anyone ordering hand-painted tile to know that the same paint colors may look slightly different from tile to tile after a firing.

“It all depends on where it was in the kiln,” says Donna Schafer of Schafer’s Tile Studio in Newport Beach, because the heat may vary from area to area in the kiln. Schafer, who works with her mother, Barbara Schafer, at the studio, recently had a job that included blue paint. The paint on some of the tiles was bright blue and some was a dark blue after firing. Most customers accept this a part of the hand-painted look, but some, she says, want everything to be an exact match, which is very difficult to achieve with hand-painted tile.

There are some alternatives for people on a budget.

“What happens is somebody comes in and they might have the idea of putting in hand-painted tile, only to find out that maybe it’s a little outside their budget,” says Richard Pulsifer, owner of the Artifactory in Huntington Beach, which specializes in tile, countertops and other items for kitchen and bath remodeling.

“They look around for alternatives, and they might find a decal tile, a pre-done tile that fits the pattern that they want for less money.” He says tiles into which a decal is permanently bonded and glazed might cost 10% to 15% more than a plain tile but about half the price of hand-painted tile.

Walker Zanger of Costa Mesa specializes in decorated tile imported from Europe and offers a wide selection of designs. European factories have assembly lines for tile painting and can produce it cheaper, according to Carlyne Tallakson, in-house designer for Walker Zanger.

“The cost factor is, I would say, maybe 30% more to have a local artist do custom work, versus our normal import,” Tallakson says. When needed, her company also commissions local artists.

She says the demand for decorated ceramic tile has increased by a factor of about 10 since she entered the business nine years ago. “It’s a very strong trend right now,” Tallakson says.