Bärenhaus Bear Tile

Clients who have an isolated wilderness cottage which they lovingly refer to as “Das Bärenhaus” (the House of Bears) wanted a large welcoming tile on the front of their Kachelofen. The clients specifically asked for a black bear hoisting a beer stein. 

This is a very large tile. The tile needed to be dried very slowly to prevent warping or cracking. Once the tile was bisqued Jessica used black stain on the relief to give it more depth, and to help separate the trees from the background. We applied all the non-green glazes with a brush by hand. Those areas were then protected with a wax resist which was also brushed on. The green glaze was poured on.

We did a few smaller test sections of the tile to work out the colouration of the glazes. Our initial small black bear/beer test worked perfectly. Ironically, our first few full sized attempts were problematic! The bear kept coming out closer to brown than black!