It's Labor Day!

It's Labor Day! Where did the summer go? Well, I've been laboring (not really...more like having fun) working on my mosaic pieces. To the left is a round mirror in a gradation from red to blue. I'm not a big orange fan but a lot of people are.

On the right we have the wine bottles a little farther along. The sky and sun are going in today. The forecast is for hot weather so I'll work inside and try to finish these pieces.

And below is another frame. I cut a mirror for it and will put it in the back after I've grouted.  I'm not sure why I grouted over the nice green frame but no looking back. The little flowers are glass beads cut in half. My friend Tami will shake in her boots when she sees the "Michael's Beads" but I like them!

Ready to Grout

Stained Glass Bottle

Today I have a few items to grout. The first is a fancy-shaped bottle I found at a thrift store. The second is a small wooden lazy susan I found at a thrift store. The third is the stained glass piece I started at Tami Macala's Santa Barbara School of Mosaic Art workshop last year. I started it but had another piece I was working on and so I did that one instead. This has been sitting around, and I finally decided to start using up some of the many, many substrates I have ready to mosaic.

So today I'll grout them all. The weather is overcast right now so it's a good time to get outside and get busy. I'll post finished pictures later!

Lazy Susan

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Santa Barbara School of Mosaic Art Fiberglass Mesh Workshop

The Santa Barbara School of Mosaic Art in Santa Barbara, CA is having Mesh and Flower Mosaic Workshop on August 27-28. You will create three flowers (or anything else you like) on fiberglass mesh that can be taken home and installed permanently on a wall or other hard surface. These pictures were taken at the Institute of Mosaic Art in Oakland where they are remodeling their bathroom with mosaic art from staff, teachers and guest teachers.


These workshops are always a lot of fun. I am always amazed at the talent people have who are doing mosaics for the first time.You might also want to do birds, butterflies or dragonflies to attach to a wall on the outside of your house. The sky's the limit!!!

Smalti Workshop Day 3

Our smalti workshop is over! Here is my smalti piece from start to finish. Our teachers, Betsy Gallery and Tami Macala, did a wonderful job, and I recommend this class very highly.

My piece was made on 8" x 10" 1/4" MDF. It was painted a matte black so any spaces between the smalti would not show up. Then we used a transfer paper to put our design on the black surface. The smalti is easy to work with, and I plan to make more pieces soon. The upside of smalti, besides its beautiful surface, is that you put the pieces as close together as possible, and you don't have to grout! Here are three more works of art from my friends Jennifer, Nancy and Gaynel. They chose a different flower design to mosaic.

Jennifer

Nancy

Gaynel

Mushrooms

Here are mushrooms in the garden. The sparkly set on the left is mine. The one in the middle is the sand casting done by Betsy Gallery to make the mushroom shape. The one on the left is Betsy's mosaiced mushroom. The Santa Barbara School of Mosaic Art is planning a class in sand casting. We will learn how to make our own mushroom bases. Sign me up!

Smalti Workshop

Jennifer and Jooolie

This weekend is our Smalti workshop! We all chose a design and started Friday afternoon. These pictures are from the end of Saturday, Day 2. We have one more day to finish our pictures. Because we are working with Mexican smalti, we don't have to grout so hopefully everyone will be done today.

These are our teachers, Tami Macala and Betsy Gallery. Betsy has taken classes in smalti in Italy and Mexico.

Teachers Tami and Betsy

My piece at the end of first evening

Marta

Loree

Nancy

My piece at the end of Saturday - a lot of blue!

End of the second day