Tiled Walls

So for the set I managed to source some boards from a company called MPM, that supports local organisations, occasionally offers materials or services they can provide to help community projects. (everything from shower cubicles for a local gym to big sheets of wood for animation students?). I gave them the measurements and then they also provided some supports so we got perfect pieces for the set. Next the task was to create the effect of a tiled wall. no I thought about getting actual tiles, and I found some through a friend whose dad owns the yorkshire tiling company but they were just so heavy, I thought there would be no chance of getting the tiled walls to uni. So I spoke to Elliot and saw his mock up of grouted tiles and thought this would be the best effect. So I started by marking up the two tiled walls.

I went through seven tubs of grout. I did not expect it to take so many. I also did not expect it to warp the wood. But as grout is waterbased apparently this is a common thing, so I clamped the floor piece to a table ( see final picture) when applying the thin layer of grout to that. 

Floor piece clamped:

In hindsight I really would of liked them smoother, and I should have sanded them before painting them but I did not think of this. They took so long to do, to smooth out each section then etch the lines in which you'd just covered up.

When painting the tiles, I stocked up on enamel paint.. but it didn't go very far. So I stopped using the enamel and gave it a few coats of acrylic and then did several enamel ones in between to break up the boards and then to make them shiny I put a load of varnish on them. But I made sure just to do the surface of each tile rather than inbetween them, because I wasn't sure what I was going to do for the grout.

In the end I went for a combination of grey paint and plasticine. I think if I was to do this again, I would either make them out of clay and stick them on, or make one out of clay vacuum pack mould it and make lots of sheets of tiles from this.