Mosaics and Cats

Today we have a two of my favorite topics; mosaics and kitty cats. First is a mosaic mirror I finished for a client. I'm fortunate to have a lovely garden to use for picture-taking when a mirror is involved.

Below we have a mosaic I made on a cupboard face sample given to me by my neighbor. His family owns a company that installs kitchens, offices and other cool spaces. It is a botanical of a hummingbirds with flowers that I thought matched the frame. On my next attempt at one of these clear swirly glass mosaics, I'll be more careful to make sure all the squares line up properly. As you can see, I had to make adjustments near the bottom. I'm always learning from my mistakes!



And finally we have adorable kitty pictures. First we have both boys asleep atop the divider that separates the front door from the living room. There are fluorescent lights in the top so it is warm, and the kitties love sleeping up there. If it weren't for the two tails, you might think it was just one cat.

Sleeping kitties

And finally we have Prancer asleep on the bed. Is he cute or what???

Prancer takes a nap

Hearts and Spirals

Spiral Mosaic

 I'm still keeping up with my goal of one new mosaic a week. Although I wonder if I'm jumping the gun by saying I finished something when it still needs grouting. Also I haven't shown commissions that I've made so I think I can feel good about my goal!

I'm working hard to get things finished for the two shows I have coming up. This top piece is a spiral in all my favorite colors. It has some millefiori thrown in here and there. I think I'll grout it in charcoal.

And here I go again with the hearts! This piece below is a medallion with mirror hearts. I'm still trying to work out the color for the part between the border and the top of the hearts. I've thrown some yellow on there to see what it would look like.

And I decided the work table outside is not the best place to photograph my mosaics because the colors never come out just right. I'll try it again in another spot where there isn't a green umbrella shading it.

Mosaic Gecko

Here is my new gecko. The base is a cupboard door I bought at Art from Scrap. My favorite color range.

It isn't grouted yet. I'm adding it to the dining room table staging area where I already have (too many) mosaic pieces that need to be grouted. And, as usual, I'm not sure what color grout to use. Charcoal might be good.

Not a mosaic, but below is my fall garden where all the Plectranthus are blooming! There are tall white ones and the low blue ones and medium pink ones (no picture). Plectranthus is a great plant to add to your garden for fall color. And they are really easy to propagate!

Mosaic Landscape and Cute Cats

I seem to really like sunbursts. This mosaic has no real goal other than I cut the beautiful red circle out with my circle cutter and then thought I should make a sun to go with it.

I also bought some rock slices at the SAMA convention and have been wanting to use them in a mosaic. So here was a good opportunity. I added them along with a tree with millefiori pieces to look like apples or flowers. Below the piece is starting to come together.

When I went outside to take a picture, Biscotti and Prancer hopped up on the table with me and posed adorably.

Biscotti and Prancer

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!

Mosaic Begonias and Gazebo Begonia and Flower Show

My friend Mike Flaherty is having his annual Begonia and Plant Show at his Gazebo store in Montecito  August.19th and 20th. I thought I'd make some Begonia-related mosaics since there will be a lot of Begonia people attending. There is even a bus coming up from Los Angeles with about 50 people. These are pictures from previous years. Seems like a lot of orange. I'm not a big fan of orange but an awful lot of people are so I am forcing myself to do some mosaics with shades of orange.

 
This is my friend Gary's beautiful terrarium with Begonias inside. Gary does stained glass lamps, terrariums, bowls, etc. This last weekend we went to Hollander's Glass in Irvine and bought a lot of glass. The colors, patterns, styles and prices are excellent. I've had to buy more storage containers to store my glass.

Below is the beginning of my mosaic. It's even too early to get a sense of what it will look like through the camera. I will hope for the best.

Rex Begonia Mosaic

Mosaics with Kids (and Adults)

Miranda

It's pretty interesting to watch kids and adults on their first jaunt into mosaics. My family lives in Carlsbad, CA and they came up to spend the night at my house. I thought mosaics would be a good way to entertain them and they all loved it!

Jeremy

The kids also had a great time in the polymer clay studio. Jeremy's favorite thing was running clay through the pasta machine over and over and over...

Mike

My nephew Mike decided not to do a mosaic piece so he read with his dog Coal. Mike still likes books although his dad and I have long since given them up for our Kindles.

Alan

Joooles

My nephew Al, who is a graphic artist in real life, had a great time working with all the different materials.

Joan

Joan was really happy with her red, white and blue design since this is Fourth of July weekend.

Mosaic Studio Progress Update

I wrote about getting the studio organized back in March, but I realize I haven't sent any updates since then. I've made good progress, and here are some pictures.

Now that the weather is nice, it is very enjoyable to work out here. I'm going to have to think about installing some sort of heat source because it gets pretty cold (40s°) in the winter. OK, that may not seem cold to those of you living in snow country, but it's cold for us here in Santa Barbara. 

But now the sun comes through the skylights and the big windows and I find myself hanging out there more and more. I also spend a lot of time working on my mosaics in the garden.

Studio

Cat Adventures

Prancer has decided that my nice cloth gazebo in the back yard would make a perfect place to watch the birds go by at their level. So he scoots up one of the "legs" making the gazebo sway and buck but finally reaches nirvana.

Flower mosaic grouted with glitter grout

Well, it's hard to see in the picture, but the grout has glitter in it. The Institute of Mosaic Art has packets of grout glitter in all different colors. I was like a kid in a candy store. On this piece I combined two of the pink shades. When you have made your final swipe at the grout and it's still wet, you press in the glitter. And voila! you have a beautiful sparkly mosaic!

I use the grouting method where after you've fill in the spaces with grout, you sprinkle dry grout over the piece and let it sit for a while. Then I take newspaper and clean off the glass. There is no extra water to mess up everything or to make tunnels in the grout. And even with this "dry" way of grouting, it was wet enough to push glitter into the grout. Click on the picture to see a larger version.

Advantages to having a lovely garden

So have you ever tried to take a picture of a mirror and got a great shot of yourself taking the picture? Well, the nice thing about having a pretty garden is that you can get the right angle when taking the picture and end up with something like this! This is another mosaic piece with a beveled mirror that I recently finished and took it out on the front porch to take a picture. It almost looks like a painting.

Bees swarming!

Well, this is a little off the mosaic topic, but I have a swarm of bees under one of my potting benches. They have found a little hole in the wall of my studio and have made themselves at home. They are honeybees and don't seem aggressive at all. I have been walking back and forth in front of them during the day, but this is what happens when everyone comes home with pollen on their feet. There's a traffic jam getting back into the nest..

So I've called a local bee man who plans to bring his "bee vacuum" to kindly remove them from the nest. It won't hurt them, and he will then relocate them to a hive he brings with him.

The only slightly scary thing for me is that, although I was never allergic to bees before, last year when I tried to save one that had fallen into the pool, he decided to bite me. By the time I got home, everything had started swelling. I went to my neighbors' house across the street, and they called the paramedics. So I am being cautious about these little fellows.

New Watering Can Commission

I have another commission from my client who has already purchased five watering cans. This one will be a gift for his landscaper. She picked this can out of several I had because she liked the yellow spout. But she likes more cottage garden colors (the client tells me) so I'm thinking dark blue on the bottom and then gradually working through lighter blue, turquoise, lavender and finally a lavender/yellow color that will tie in with the spout. Well, that's my initial thought but who knows what it will become. I'll post work-in-progress photos.