Mosaic Street Number

Mosaic Street Number

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Natalija decided to test some materials and methods by putting our street number on the loading dock of the warehouse. Her method was to lay 3/4-inch vitreous tile in a mounting grid, but she put them in upside down and laid a sheet of fiberglass mesh on them and used one drop of silicone adhesive on each tile to attach the mesh. My method would be to lay the tiles in the grid right side up and pick up the design with mosaic mounting tape. Continue reading →

Second Layer of Mesh

Making Foam-Core Mosaic Backers For Outdoor Projects

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Artist Jill Gatwood uses the following method to make water-resistant foam-core mosaic backers for exterior mosaics, such as the Pet Memorial Name Plaques she does for clients who need something that is lighter weight and easier to ship than stone or solid concrete. The method wraps the foam in three or four successive layers of fiberglass mesh and thinset mortar, and that coating is pretty tough, tougher than stone. (The combination of polymer-modified cement and fiberglass can withstand blows that would easily crack granite of the same thickness.) Continue reading →

jingo-pet-name-mosaic

Pet Memorial Name Plaques

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For people wanting to make a portrait of their furry friend, I wrote an article on pet memorial mosaics using April Costigan’s work as illustrations of what is possible in terms of capturing likeness. The problem is that for many people, the task of rendering a realistic portrait of their pet is beyond their current skill level.

Fortunately, it is possible to make a pet memorial mosaic without the pet’s portrait and still make it personalized and specific to that pet. For example, instead of attempting an image of your pet, consider spelling their name in mosaic and making the surrounding area significant in terms of colors and found objects. More on that later.

Artist Jill Gatwood emailed us some pictures of some pet memorial name plaques that she has made, and they are good examples of the visual interest that can be created in the background with patterns of contrasting colors. I wanted to show these off because I think people who aren’t confident in their ability to draw will be inspired to make their own versions. Continue reading →

Mosaic Mailbox Jill Gatwood

Mosaics on Steel Mailbox Using Silicone Adhesive

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Artist Jill Gatwood has emailed me her procedure for using GE Silicone II to mount mosaic tile to steel mailboxes, and it is outlined below.

Jill’s instructions have convinced me that there are enough mosaic applications for silicone adhesive that we should sell it. Note that we still recommend thinset mortar or Weldbond for mosaics on architectural surfaces such as backsplashes, but for projects such as mosaic  mailboxes or glass-on-glass mosaics, silicone adhesive is preferred.

Jill’s steel mailbox instructions are fairly complete and include recommendations for purchasing the right type of mailbox for the project and modifying it as needed.

Steel Mailbox Instructions

1. Selecting The Mailbox

Jill says that a steel mailbox from the big box home improvement stores or a hardware store will work but you have to check it and make sure the metal is strong and doesn’t flex. (In practical terms, this means you should buy the mid-grade or premium model and not the one made for the bottom of the market.)

Jill recommends getting one that has ribs to strengthen the frame if you need an XL size mailbox. Continue reading →

four-seasons-garden-path-mosaic

Four Elements Garden Mosaic

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“Amateur” artist Tobin recently completed his Four Elements garden mosaic, and it is amazing for several reasons, the least of which is the fact that it was created over a span of six years with the artist getting up at 5 am to spend 45 minutes on it before leaving for his day job in corporate project management.

Here’s what I find impressive about Tobin’s mosaic:

Mosaic Swallowtail Butterfly

Mosaic Swallowtail Butterfly. Note the uniformity of the grout gap in the background, which is as impressive as the detail in the butterfly.

  • Each figure is well executed with a level of detail and precision that is remarkable. An experienced artist following a digitally generated pattern couldn’t do much better if at all. Continue reading →
Detail Fish Shower Mosaic by artist Jen Vollmer

Figurative Mosaic Composition Integrated With Shower Tiling

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Artist Jen Vollmer recently completed a shower mosaic which features fish and flowing water executed in the same colors as the surrounding mosaic tiling. Jen says that in retrospect, she wishes she would have used a darker grey grout and blue/green glass tiles instead of the light blue, which would have increased the contrast.

I’m partial to intense colors and strong contrast, and those are required for an image to be eye-catching, but what struck me about Jen’s mosaic was that it is subtle in a professional way, integrated with the existing tile work and intentionally calculated to not stand out too strongly.

It was almost as if a client had commissioned the work and said, “Make the design figurative and naturalistic and have its own flowing andamento, but make it also integrate visually with the grids of tile that it runs through, and do that as seamlessly as possible.” Continue reading →

Tadpole Place One-Third Poured

Impulse Art Projects: A Case Study In Sculptured Concrete

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It’s EXTREMELY important to allow yourself to do creative projects on impulse without overthinking it. The reason is simple: research tends to kill the creative urge, at least for most people. Research can become an end in itself and go on to long and kill enthusiasm or the window of opportunity is lost.

Research can also give you problematic information and expectations for several reasons:

  1. Advice isn’t one-size-fits-all, especially artistic advice.
  2. People forget that the examples they are looking at were made by masters or that the advice was written for professional results of a particular criteria that isn’t relevant.
  3. Corruption of the original vision. Usually creative ideas evolve and grow by incorporation, but sometimes new inputs can overwhelm and kill the dreamlike essence of the original inspiration. Sometimes too many ideas and possibilities occur to the artist, who is then unable to chose one and focus on it.

Instead of naively charging in like a kid playing and learning through play, adults tend to want to reduce the process to executing a known procedure as much as possible. That really isn’t art, at least not in the experiential sense for the artist.

All that being said, it’s also important to not waste expensive materials and to not produce something that falls apart quickly because you didn’t take the time to look up a few basics. Continue reading →

Mosaic Mailbox by artist Linda Robertson

Alternative Mosaic Mailbox Designs

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Putting a mosaic on a metal mailbox is problematic because either the metal is painted and you risk the mosaic not adhering well, or because the the metal is bare, and then the thinset mortar is likely to oxidize (rust) the metal over the years.

Note: My neighbor put a pique assiette mosaic on her galvanized steel mailbox, and it has lasted for years with no obvious signs of rusting. It can be done.

Fortunately, there is an alternative that makes more sense for mosaic, and that is to build a column of field stones or bricks or cinder blocks and then plaster over that with mortar and put the mosaic on the smoothed surface. In this design, the mailbox can be mounted on top of the column or built into a niche in the column near the top.

Artist Linda Robertson recently emailed me some pictures of her mosaic mailbox, and it is a good example of an alternative mosaic mailbox that avoids putting the mosaic on the metal itself. Continue reading →

Prying Tile From Finished Mosaic

How To Pry Up Tiles To Modify A Mosaic

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I have often used a small screwdriver to pry up tiles when I wanted to change some detail in a mosaic, but in all of those cases, the mosaic had a grout gap, and it was possible to knock an individual tile out or shatter it without damaging its neighbors, at least most of the time.

But what if you can’t afford to damage surrounding tiles or you have a mosaic with no grout gap? Is it even possible to get tiles up? The answer is yes, and the method involves a wet cotton swab, a dental pick, and a sharpened chopstick.

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Madre de Guadalupe Contemporary Mosaic

Strong Color Contrast in Heazlewood Mosaics

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Artist Megan Heazlewood makes strong use of contrasting colors in her iconic mosaics, and I think her work is inspiring for that reason.

Egyptian Musicians

Egyptian Musicians Contemporary Mosaic

Egyptian Musicians Contemporary Mosaic by Artist Megan Heazlewood

There are several contrasting color pairs in Megan’s mosaic of ancient Egyptian musicians: the teal and pink of the lotus flowers, the blue and gold, the white robes and the different skin tones, the blues and greens versus the burnt orange.

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