Fleur-de-lis 19th Century English Tile - 04 Jun 2023

English fleur-de-lis?

Sure, why not. Also remember that the fleur-de-lis was also used in English designs as well as French. Interesting that the Origin section on that page suggests the name comes from the river Lys (I thought it was spelled that way) and they might be an iris, not a lily. Anyway, whatever, here is the basic design:

initial painting of the fleur-de-lis tile

Which is very close to the original tile in the Tile Book (see previous for another on the same page).

Are the colours right, though?

No, the orange ended up a little too orange and not as red as the original. Also, just leaving some sections white did not look quite right. So gave it a bit of a twist:

final painting of the fleur-de-lis tile

Specifically, I filled in the main white sections with cream/yellow, and darkened the blue with some red in the middle. Once varnished, it looks pretty good - although as always I notice small imperfections in the geometry afterwards.

Final product

The end result is here for what it’s worth.