For the past several months I’ve been working on a commission for the garden of a private residence.
In February I gave a talk to a local art group about my experience attending The 3rd Contemporary Mosaic Art Symposium in Sardinia Italy (subject for another post – long overdue). The following day I was contacted by a woman who had been at the talk, who commissioned me to create 2 mosaics for her beloved garden. She’d been introduced to a variety of materials during my talk, and as a result decided on Mexican Smalti, as her material of choice. OK by me!
In February I gave a talk to a local art group about my experience attending The 3rd Contemporary Mosaic Art Symposium in Sardinia Italy (subject for another post – long overdue). The following day I was contacted by a woman who had been at the talk, who commissioned me to create 2 mosaics for her beloved garden. She’d been introduced to a variety of materials during my talk, and as a result decided on Mexican Smalti, as her material of choice. OK by me!
I composed the second design from a selection of pics the client sent me, of her favorite flower varieties. This final painting, was done after several drawings, revisions, and chats with the client.
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The first directive I received, was for lots of color!!! An osprey and flowers. As the osprey would be comprised of neutral colors, I wanted to create a dramatic and colorful background for him to soar above. |
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The Smalti Arrives! Mexican smalti is absolutely luscious. Every tesserae unique, with lots of color variation, making it both exciting and complicated to work with. |
I chose to use a lightweight, waterproof, substrate which comes in a variety of thicknesses. The Osprey was cut out of the 1 inch substrate which was latter attached to the 1/2 inch background substrate. I was thrilled to find that the 1/2 boards come in 4’x5′ sheets, the size of the flower mural.
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Here I am holding the completed osprey, so you can get a sense of its size.
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Finally, with all the materials in the studio, I started by cutting out the osprey shape.
& the adhering begins!
I really enjoyed working on the dramatic seascape, folding each colorful band into the next. Slowly, cut by cut & piece by piece, surrounding the osprey. |
The Osprey flew off to his new garden home …. On to the flowers!
I started by transferring a cartoon of my design to the substrate, and began the setting here….
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You can see how much variety there is in the Mexican Smalti color mixes. The red is more burgundy. I was hoping for a bit more of a true red, but that didn’t seem to be available. As ever, I enjoyed the challenge of improvising and experimenting with lots of different color combinations.
After many weeks of work the mosaic is ready for grout! |
