Keeping up with my Weekly New Work Goal

I have been working on new mosaics! The mosaic above is a tempered glass piece that turned out looking like a bird. I started with a bouquet of Tuberous Begonias (left) made by a friend of mine. Then I put it in Photoshop and did a little Liquifying on it. Only when I showed it to friends did I see that there was a bird in the picture. This hasn't been grouted yet. I think I'll do two or three colors of grout.

On the right is a mosaic I am making for the American Begonia Society convention coming up soon. The picture is a botanical of Begonia boliviensis. I printed the picture on my large format Epson printer.Then I cut out glass squares and glued them down with Weldbond. Unfortunately some of the pieces (especially the long bottom glass piece) didn't get completely covered with glue and have a ripple effect. Hopefully grout will help to hide it.













To the right is another mosaic to enter in the ABS convention show. It is Begonia luxurians. It seems a little dull to me so I may spruce it up with some glitter somewhere. Martha Stewart has glitter paints that are transparent with only the glitter showing. I may try something like that on the sky.

And below we have a couple more mosaics; a cat rock and a big gold mirror, Neither is grouted yet. And I've been making Begonia rocks. I'll post a picture soon.

Still busy working on my mosaics!

Learning Moments

Ungrouted Flower

So here is another of those aha! moments. Above is the ungrouted flower/sunburst mosaic I posted the other day. I wanted an old-fashioned look on the frame so I first painted the frame with a burgundy paint. When that was dry, I added a coat of the green. Then I smudged some of the green paint off so the burgundy would show. I thought it looked great.

So yesterday I grouted the piece. First I put masking tape over the frame to protect it and then grouted. When I removed the masking tape, it pulled some more of the green paint off and made an even better looking frame! Now I had painted this at least a month ago so I'm surprised at what happened but I certainly like the new look. Sooooo....I learn something new nearly every time I make a new mosaic! That's half the fun!!!

Grouted flower with new look on the frame

Grouting with the Kitty

So today I did a little more grouting (still have about six pieces to go). This cute little heart turned out well with rose beige grout sprinkled with pink glitter. It's only about 6" across. The center rose was cut from some English china with my ring saw

And below is my trusty sidekick Biscotti. He hung around with me while I worked in the yard.

Life is better when you have pets!

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!!!

Time to Grout

Yesterday was grouting day. Several people have asked about metal house numbers so I made up a sample - the "7" with mirror glass. I found a supply of numbers at a local "random" store where they buy everything under the sun from who knows where. The parrot is for a friend of mine who likes parrots. The house number plaque is a commission and the heart and flowers are just because I like hearts and flowers. The heart is cut from Wedi board so it can be hung outside as is the parrot.  The more I mosaic, the more I find that I just like the soothing quality of gluing. Now if only I found the initial design soothing...

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!