Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Monthly Mosaic Blog

What a wonderfully productive month! It does help to make a scheduled time to be in the studio (along with getting ready for a show helps :) I did finish my Dancing Birch piece along with a few mini's. I was able to have enough for any area at the Art Harvest Festival in our local area. Finally I feel I am making some progress with building up a "stock" of finished mosaics. The day of the Festival was beautiful and we had a wonderful turn out. What talent in our area!



Here is a new piece that I started this week, it is going a totally different direction then what I had orginally planned. I was thinking when I first had this design to do a white monochromatic piece until I found some beads that were given to me through the tesserae exchange at the Austin Convention. Now it has become more of an African piece. I really enjoy letting the tesserae help inspire the direction to go. I finished adhering the "sun" portion now I am playing around with different ideas for the "rays".


This morning was very fun. There is a local lady who just finished her first mosaic and wanted to come over to my studio to learn how to grout. I love to help people learn this wonderful art. But, I thought I should have something of my own to grout and show her the process. So...I found a piece that had been sitting around for about 3 years that I had never grouted. What a wonderful reason to finally finish it. It's called "Play the Blues" and was one of my first few mosaics. It did not look so bad after I grouted. The edges are a little raw since they are odd shapes and that. I was glad to finish my piece and help her along the way. Her's turned out beautifully and she did an outstanding job for her first mosaic. I wish I would have taken a picture of it to post.



Well instead of a gallery to visit this month I was up in Duluth, MN and finally saw Laura Stone's mosaics in the Whole Foods up there. They are absolutely stunning and I was thrilled to see them in person! Very inspiring!


Goals for the month


Finish African Sun piece


Take a couple workshops at the Chicago mosaic school


Finish another mini mosaic


Quote of the month


"Those who dwell...among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life."


-Rachel Carson