Blue and White Floral Tiles from Porto, Portugal

I took hundreds of photographs of tiles when I was in Portugal this summer. I was entranced by the variety and color and surprise of them. I hadn’t realized that tiles could be used on the outside of buildings and was fascinated to see that all over Porto and Lisbon. Because they were on the outside of buildings it was much easier to take pictures of the sheer variety. I have begun to draw out some of these tile patterns. I thought it would be interesting to see the black and white drawing of just one tile and then have a group of four of them painted to get an idea of a pattern that can be created with that just one tile rotated.