We bought a house from a “artistic” gay chap last year, nice house, marble kitchen, high beamed ceilings etc, aside from that he had the lounge in a neon pink and green - but that we sorted out relatively quickly. We were also quite eager to rip off the 12 gecko’s and three elephants he had mounted on the walls and gates.
Outside he mounted tiles in strategic places and painted “art” on them, so I’ve got a 6ft Virgin Mary posing against a wall behind a lovely garden bed, chickens clucking away by the garage door wall and sunflowers greeting you at the front door. Oh, and a fat lady with a daisy in her hand by the patio. He had King Tut’s face mounted on the other side of the garage doors but we forced him to take the hideous thing with when he moved out. We decided to paint a Yin and Yang on that particular tileset just for the hell of it. The others we’re scratching heads about. We considered ripping the tiles off, but the effort and costs involved getting the walls looking even will not be worth it (he chipped the plaster out to level the tiles in)
We’re looking for things that represent our sceptisism, but also dont want to go all kitchy with it considering there are around 6 images we need to replace. So the Darwin Fish doesnt make the grade. The taste is stark and minimalist, which is why the black and white Yin/Yang blends in. The S/O has a steady hand and a flair for drawing, but simple images that can be replicated by a layman would be preferable.
How about that atom sign they put on the graves of fallen soldiers that were not religious? Or a replica of the plaque that was sent with one of the Pioneer space probes (relatively simple and shouldn’t be too difficult to redraw)? Perhaps a famous equation or two? Or something humorous: “God said… {fill in Maxwell equations} … and there was light.” Or a simple line drawing portrait of Darwin, similar in style to the Pioneer plaque? Shouldn’t be too difficult to draw, what with the distinctly ape-like forehead (or simply use a grid to transfer the image from a reference picture).
For something a bit more tricky, one could try to replicate a fractal. If you print it out on paper, then lay the paper on the tile, you could perhaps work out a way to print it onto the tile. E.g. use the transfer method the Renaissance fresco artists used: poke small holes in the paper design to indicate the outlines, then lay the design onto the tile and dust graphite or charcoal powder on it, thus transferring the outlines onto the tile, after which it will be easier to accurately redraw it. One could perhaps follow a similar method to redraw those beautiful spiral paths that particles take in an accelerator - there should be plenty of images of such things on the web.
Hmm, a fun challenge - I’ll see if I can think of some more…
Geez brianvds, you telepathic!? >:D I composed the following before your reply hit the forum.
How about things that are reminiscent of science? Perhaps a few readily recognisable equations, e.g. Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation, Schrödinger’s equation, Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence. Or if that’s too complicated and/or unappealing, some geometrical shapes, e.g. sections of a Penrose tiling, projections and/or unfoldings of geometrical objects like a Klein bottle or a tesseract, or the five Platonic solids. If you feel up to the task, you can try fractal renderings like the Mandelbrot set or various Sierpinski gaskets.
These things can be done in black and white (assuming you don’t want your house to look like a psychedelic nightmare) and examples are easy to find on the internet.
A completely different motif could be to make it all look like wild forest or bush.
Whichever gimmicky science theme you go for, DO NOT forget to add some tasteful classical references as well. Just to balance things out, see. You can’t go far wrong with nudes. A buxom young maiden straddling a Möbius strip are sure to turn some heads.
Are these tiles glazed ceramic or porous terracotta? What medium was used for the current art, and how are you going to remove it?
If you want to try something challenging, you could also do replicas of some of MC Escher’s more mind-bending art. There’s a special-purpose projector obtainable at good art shops which lets you project an image from a paper copy onto another surface like a wall for the purpose of tracing it at the desired magnification.
Its not glazed and we’ll sand down the current “art” before applying a base coat and applying our own designs. As far as I can ascertain, its just the usual outdoor paint used. I could be entirely wrong though, Its not an area that I have much knowledge in. I’ll go take some pics of the tiles and post them here for scrutiny.
If you want to try something challenging, you could also do replicas of some of MC Escher’s more mind-bending art.
Way too much mind-reading going around this forum, stop that! But seriously I love his work with these kinds of morphing patterns. Just imagine if you take an existing pattern from the surrounding tiles and morph it to blend back at the edges. I like.
Lol… Seems like you’re spoilt for choice Faerie. Some really brilliant ideas here.
You don’t exclusively have to go for sceptcism either. How about a shared love or interest?
My dad had a photo of a guitar that drew a lot of interest. He was an Elvis fan, and this pecific guitar was owned by an Elvis impersonator. This guy went out and bought every Elvis memorial postage stamp he could find, then meticulously pasted the lot on the face of the guitar as if it was a solid sheet of stamps. The photo my dad had was just big enough to peak visitors’ interest. Many of them ending up spending several minutes examining the photo close-up. I myself ended up spending many an hour examining the minute detail, much to the annoyance of anyone coming in the front door… I’m sure there’s a way something that fragile can be preserved on tile?
