I spent last weekend at a workshop with well-known English mosaic artist Martin Cheek. The workshop was held at Tami Macala's Santa Barbara Institute of Mosaic Art. The class was more about Martin giving us insight into many aspects of mosaics, form, than it was about finishing a mosaic piece. Plus as I listened to his lectures, I realized that I had already made some design flaws in my piece. More on that later.
However, I did do a funky cat with Martin's fusions, smalti and vitreous glass. I also had some fusions from my friend Gary, so I added his butterfly and tail to the mix. And I had some ceramic pieces I threw in for even more fun.
Martin Cheek |
Martin is an extremely knowledgeable artist as well as being quite the funny man. He entertained us with many different kinds of humor. He also imparted very sound information about design, composition, colors, and contrast. So my beginning attempt is shown below and then the piece as it progressed through the weekend. I didn't finish as you can see but I plan to finish gluing and grouting soon.
Martin grouts everything he does with a medium gray grout. He told us that he lost a sale because a woman asked him why his smalti piece wasn't grouted. He told her all the reasons behind not grouting smalti but she didn't buy it anyway. Martin also has a new book called Fused Glass Mosaics which I bought and am halfway through. It's a very enlightening book.
Grayscale |
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