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Artistic Style in Mosaic
Artist Ivana Sorrells works at Mosaic Art Supply, and she made a couple of small mosaic plaques using our vitreous glass tile, stained glass, and 8-inch plywood mosaic backer boards, plus a few odd findings from a few other types of mosaic glass. Ivana hadn’t worked in mosaic before these pieces, but she gave it […]
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Mosaic Peacock: A Cautionary Tale
My recent blog article about small mosaics has a section at the end that explains how to take catalog-ready photos of mosaic art. My article about mosaic frames includes some discussion about the best light for photographing artwork and the need to avoid foreshortening. I know why the issue is coming up more and more […]
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Small Mosaics Update
I have been making some small mosaics on our bamboo mosaic coaster backers, and I wanted to share a photo of the collection so far and talk about some more advantages of working in a series of smalls. Each of these coasters will be a “tile” that is used in a large sculpture that is […]
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Sports Logo Mosaic
A stylized logo or pattern is different from a picture of an object. In a picture, the goal is to create a sense of verisimilitude (likeness) by including small details and visual complexity. In a logo, there is an opposite emphasis. To create a logo, images are “posterized” and every element is reduced to monochromatic […]
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Curves Not Lines for Better Mosaics
Artist Marianne Limandri’s mosaics are good examples of how to create more interesting designs by thinking in terms of curves instead of straight lines. Straight line segments (or their imperfect representations) occur all the time in nature, from cactus needles all the way up to the endless horizon on the open sea, but they are […]
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Mosaics in a Painterly Style
Paints can be blended to any shade or hue, but the mosaic medium requires that an artist render an image in a limited set of fixed colors. The color palettes of molded glass tile product lines are limited to 40 to 60-ish colors, and this limitation seems to encourage novice artists to work in a […]
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Video of Mosaic Rose Design Process
Natalija has filmed a video of her laying out a rose mosaic inset for her new home, and it’s a good demonstration of cutting and fitting tile and other basic techniques. More importantly, it shows the process of design evolution by trial and error, something that is lacking in most craft videos. Marking and Cutting […]
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Large Mixed-Media Mosaic Mural
Artist Dianne Stearns and her students have created an impressive mixed-media mosaic mural on the exterior of their school in Tuolumne County, California. Too Much Inspiration The mural is a “regional icons landscape collage,” and so naturally it shows local landmarks and regional archetypes, but when you have El Capitan in Yosemite National Park and […]
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Wood Frames For Mosaics
Artist Tanya Boyd emailed me some photos of her mosaics, and all of them were in wooden frames of different types. It reminded me that I am overdue to write up the ways of sourcing wooden frames for mosaics: used frames from paintings or mirrors frames made using molding and a miter saw frames made […]
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Secret to an Exceptional First Mosaic
I’ve already written about Brad Srebnik’s first mosaic and how impressive it is. It’s also amazing how well Brad documented the process as he was learning it. Brad emailed me a summary of his methods and the lessons he learn from the project. He has some good photos of some important steps, including making a […]