Ellen Blakeley and Tempered Glass Mosaics

Ellen Blakeley and Julie

I spent the weekend in Oakland at the Institute of Mosaic Art attending a wonderful two-day class by Ellen Blakeley.  I finished three tempered glass mosaics and learned much more about grouting with many colors in one piece. Below is the purple and blue piece I made to match my shirt and the Hardenbergia on the left. The circle has papers underneath the tempered glass, and the one on the bottom had a design on the wood that I mosaiced over. 

Purple and blue mosaic to match my shirt!

Tempered glass with different colors of grout

And the good thing is that I bought two of the flower rectangles below (at a thrift store) so I can make another one using better tools that I have here at home. Like my ring saw or my Beetles and Bits system for cutting pieces in any shape. At Ellen's suggestion I cut out plate glass to put over the flowers but the glass cutter that was available was not very flexible (to me, at least). So next time I'll cut out pieces that fit the flower and leaves better. 

I'm also going to add to the grout color by using her fantastic method for changing color after you've grouted. I learned it in her first class and have used it on other mosaics, but it was good to have a refresher course to remember how you're really suppose to do it!!!

Ellen is a wonderful hands-on teacher who is always willing to share her ideas and techniques with the class. We used epoxy to glue the pieces of tempered glass to the base. What a sticky mess that was! But I suppose you get better at it after some practice. I did spend quite a bit of time with a razor blade scraping off the epoxy residue on the top of the glass. 

Maggie the Dog and the Arch

 Well, I'm working on a couple things today. I've been trying to use up the substrates (bases) that I have already rather than buying new ones or going to the thrift stores to look for unusual shapes. I did find a wooden dolphin and a wooden chili pepper that I plan to work on soon.

But this is a piece of Hardibacker that I bought when I was at the Institute of Mosaic Art in Oakland. The tesserae inside the outlines are really all black but some look blue. And as I was starting to work on it, I realized it reminded me of the logo for the Palace Cafe here in Santa Barbara!
They don't have Calla Lilies on their logo, however.

And below I've finished gluing the doggie Maggie. I was going to grout her today but it's turned out to be too hot for me outside so I'm staying inside. The cats have a rat so they're staying inside with me too.

So I'll keep working on my mosaics while the cats chase the rat from pillar to post. They lost him for a while and I looked up on these glass shelves I have and there on the very top shelf was a big tail sticking out from behind a bowl. I moved the bowl and the rat torpedoed off the shelf and flew about 10 feet. And then the race was on again!

I heard more noise in the hall just now and found Biscotti playing with a blue-bellied lizard. I'll go rescue it. The rats are harder to rescue and put back outside. They are fast!

Another enjoyable day at my house!