When JoAnn Wolf was growing up in Chicago, her junior high school teacher recognized her artistic talents and sent her to an Art Institute of Chicago drawing class. She laughs as she recalls her introduction to the art world: “I walked in and saw men drawing a nude woman. I turned tail and went home.” Years later, she took oil-painting lessons. Then, at age 52, she found her calling: tile painting.
Now 67 and retired as a secretary, Wolf custom-paints tiles for kitchens and bathrooms. She completes 15 tile projects a year from her home, plus freebies she does as housewarming gifts for relatives. Some customers hire her to paint sets of tiles they disperse among plain tiles on kitchen backsplashes, above stoves or in bathrooms. Others ask her to paint multi-tile murals.
“Most people know they want painted tiles, but don’t know what type of design,” says Wolf. “So I have them look through my portfolio and I give them suggestions. They usually choose their favorite flowers, fruits, vegetables or foods, like loaves of French bread, blueberry muffins or slices of pie. Gourmet cooks tell me exactly what herbs to include.”
Wolf duplicates designs from vases, pillows or swatches of wallpaper or fabric. “The most intricate one I ever did was a mural that included the family’s Ming-style vase with a detailed blue and white design,” she says.
Wolf asks her customers to choose their colors from the 150 paint colors she keeps on hand. “When someone says they want navy, I show them the blues and ask if they really want ultra-marine, Victoria blue, carmine blue or blue horizon,” she says.
Wolf tells her customers to have their installers measure the areas to be tiled first to determine how many tiles to buy. She recommends they buy off-white or white ceramic tiles. “I prefer the matte finish because it tones down the colors a bit, but glossy is OK if they like it that way,” she says. “For murals, I prefer the 6-inch-square tiles because there are fewer lines in the design.”
When a customer brings Wolf her tiles, she lays them out in the spare bedroom of her West Chicago home that doubles as her workroom, where stacks of paints, brushes and tiles line the walls. She paints the basic pattern with a tiny brush. Then she defines the design with a rubber-tipped tool that looks like the gum-cleaning tip on a toothbrush. She uses another brush to soften the lines.
“I use soft-bristle brushes specifically made for china painting,” Wolf explains. “They don’t make brush strokes. These are brushes that the oil painter would call `dead’ because the bristles don’t pop back.”
After she paints the pattern, she asks the customer to approve the design. She numbers the backs of the tiles and draws this-end-up arrows for the installer. Next she fires the tiles in her kiln at 1,200 degrees for two hours. Then she paints the shadows and details, like the roundness of peaches, and fires them again. Deep reds and purples sometimes require a third round of painting and firing. Before the final firing, Wolf signs her work in a discreet spot–on a vine or hidden elsewhere in the design.
“The technique is the opposite of oil painting, where you do the background first,” says Wolf. “In tile painting, you paint the light highlights first.” She paints freehand, a method she learned at seminars held at china-painting guild conventions.
Wolf buys china paints in powder form from a mail-order catalog, then mixes them using a recipe she borrowed from a long-ago painting teacher. “It’s a mixture of mineral oil, oil of cloves and balsam oil that allows the paint to dry, but mistakes can be wiped off before it’s fired,” she says.
Customers can clean the fired tiles with any household cleanser. “The firing makes the paint so hard, a tough cleanser might scratch the tile, but not the paint,” she says.
Wolf charges by the tile, with higher fees for larger tiles. She reports some customers take them along when they sell their homes. She recalls a chef who had his tiles mounted on a board, then hung the board over his stove. “He knew he would be moving, and he didn’t want to leave them,” she says. “One woman who was moving took her tiles off the wall, soaked off the adhesive, and took them with.”
Wolf says she’s grateful to be able to pursue a passion that pays and has no intention of retiring from her second career. “I’ll be painting until they cart me off,” she says.
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For more information, contact JoAnn Wolf, 630-289-6743.
