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

A Bit of Everything

Here is how the moon looked this morning around 6 a.m. The sun was just coming up, and the sky was this gorgeous shade of blue.

Below on the left is a wooden tray filled with glass beads. I found two large bags of beads at a thrift store and thought it would be fun to make a mosaic using only beads. The cat in the middle has a red sign that says "Love is a Cat." Next time I'll do the writing with a bold pen.

And here we have a simple stained glass frame with a mirror that I started over a year ago. I finally got around to finishing it.  I like the big, colorful flowers.

And finally on the right is a frame I made for a friend using treasured china that broke. On the left is the picture that went into the frame. It is a picture of my friend's mother who is 94 now, and the picture was taken when she was 17. She's standing with her grandmother. Such wonderful memories!

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!