North Wall
My landlords hosted an annual Bastille Day party and they wanted this mural to connect to that theme. We decided on the French flag, but with a motif reminiscent of kites.
I made a scaled elevation drawing of the wall and gridded it with letters and numbers (like a spreadsheet), so I could map where each tile would be placed. After creating the tiles, I made a paper template, affixed it to the wall, chalked around it, and identified important landmarks, such as the bottom row of each triangle. I then removed the stucco so the tiles would be cemented to the wall, not to the paint/stucco surface. Tiles were then cemented into place and grouted. I should mention: I did all of this without a car, so I would carry 50 pound bags of dry grout mix on the city bus and walk. No wonder I'm so skinny in the final photo.
South Wall
One of my landlords was a geologist, so we decided on a continental drift motif for this wall. Given the sun patterns across the wall, it was an opportunity to play with shadows. Thus the thick textures on the tiles. Each tile is unique, so when some of them blew up in the kiln (they weren't dry enough), I had to go through a laborious process to determine which ones had been lost, then to remake them with the texture pattern aligning with the adjacent tiles. The same installation process as the North Wall was used.
