Friday, August 21, 2009

Mosaic Work - Tons of tiny pieces of fun.

I’m working on a new mosaic project.
I can’t say much about it because it is part of a competition.
! shusssssh. it’s a secret !
( bet your curious now ! )

But I can say I am having a lot of fun in the studio once again.

I’ve completed several mosaic projects in the past.
All of them were fairly modest in scale.
The one that I’m working on now is about 4 times the size.
( bet your really curious now ! )

Here’s some photos along with some descriptions of some of my past mosaic projects:

My front entry path to my house.
Photo by Saxon Holt for Sunset Magazine.

From Pina Colada


The blue field is a full body porcelain tile.
The leaves were made from 12 x 12 inch tiles of China slate that I cut into 1 x1 inch squares.
The thistles are made of green Thai river rocks, porcelain tiles, amethyst and turquoise pieces.

Photograph below by Lee Anne White for Fine Gardening Magazine
From Pina Colada


The second modest sized piece was made for the San Francisco Garden Show.
It is a tempered glass mosaic , which is quite complex in comparison to regular tile and stone mosaic construction.

From San Francisco Garden Show 2008


Photo below by Angela Pratt for her blog Garden Bliss / Sacramento Gardening and the S.F. garden show blog
Link to Angela's blog : http://sacgardening.blogspot.com/
From San Francisco Garden Show 2008


From San Francisco Garden Show 2008


This summer during the Economic Cone of Doom, aka The Recession, I took on a part time sculpture job for a fabulous company called Interplay.
Interplay designs and crafts incredibly innovative play structures for childrens playgrounds.
Below are some projects that I worked on together with the totally awesome Interplay team:

A water feature that was set in a beach side setting in San Diego
From Interplay Project


Check out the embedded fossils in the lower side of the sculpture.
From Interplay Project


The mosaic on this project was mostly stone pebbles with some porcelain tiles
From Interplay Project


This volcano looking object is actually an armature to hold up a large commercial style umbrella.
It too will be set in a bed of sand next to the Pacific Ocean.

Glass tiles, pebbles and hand carved nautilus.
From Interplay Project


Below is the original nautilus that I carved out of sculpture clay.
A fiberglass mold was made of it and it was cast in concrete .
From Interplay Project


The color coat of stucco was being applied.
I usually got more stucco on my clothes than on the structure, ... but sure had a lot of fun doing so !
That’s Eric , the head artist of the studio . He is a Rhode Island School of Design Graduate and is one of the finest artist’s I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with.
From Interplay Project

5 comments:

Linda@ Lime in the Coconut said...

Stunning...each of them! I enjoyed seeing the close up of your path to your house! I've done a few mosaic's...

Tell me...How does your path hold up? It's walked on, right? I'd love to do something like that for our walkway.

How It Grows said...

Very nice work! What kind of mortar do you use?

Deviant Deziner, aka Michelle said...

Hi Linda,
The path is about 10 years old now and is holding up well.
Occasionally a piece at the edge will come loose because it is not 'locked in' by grout and I'll have to epoxy it back down.

The path is walked on daily, it's the main path in and out of the house.

How is grows ,
For most of the tile and stone work I use a polyblend mortar and will add just a hint of admix to add strength and flexibility.
For the glass mosaics no mortar is used at all. I use a clear two part epoxy.

Delphine said...

I have no doubt that you are going to win the competition with your secret project !! (tell me what it is!!!)

Paula said...

Just found your blog and didnt want to leave without a comment. These pictures are stunning, amazing and they really made my day. Thanks for sharing and I will surely be back. Hugs across the pond