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Mosaic Tables and Interior Design
Artist RJ Spurr recently completed two mosaic tables for his home, and I wanted to share them because the level of craft work is excellent, and the designs are integrated with the color schemes of rooms where they were installed.
The great thing about dry indoor mosaics is that you can use wood as a base, and that means you can put mosaics on wooden tables. Thrift shops, yard sales, and unfinished furniture stores are great sources for tables, but you can also breath new life into old tables you already have on hand.
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Mosaic Memorial Cross for Maddie
Georgia Art Teacher Connie Wells has been working with her students on a memorial cross project:
Highland Christian Academy in Valdosta, GA wanted to remember one of our 8th grade students, Maddie Pitts that recently passed away from cancer in a personal, honorable way. As we constructed a small garden area with a pink bench and beautiful flowers, the students will be making rows of mosaic tiles to place on the centerpiece cross as a personal tribute to her memory. Maddie’s siblings, will also place a personal row of tiles to add to the memorial.
We are so grateful to my daughter Katie at Mosaic Art Supply in Atlanta for their gracious donations of beautiful tiles for the students to compose their personal contribution. We are grateful to Home Depot for the grout and building base for the cross.
The cross stands 6′ by 4′, with its backer material mechanically fastened to the wall. Each line of tile is created by students.
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Choosing Grout Color Using Tile Test Swatches
Tracy Kaplan recently emailed us a picture of her FIRST mosaic, and it is nice solid work, impressive even, especially considering that her instructor gave her some problematic advice concerning the grout color. Tracy’s teacher had recommended a chocolate or nutmeg colored grout, but Tracy wisely considered how a dark brown might cause adjacent tree trunks to no longer be distinct and separate.
Perhaps Tracy’s instructor had meant a lighter shade of those browns, but I still think that those could have caused problems with the adjacent tree trunks.
Most likely, the instructor only saw a portion of the mosaic without adjacent tree trunks. Tracy admits that she only finished about an eighth of the work during the course and spent many months afterward working to complete it.
If so, this is yet another example of how artistic advice isn’t one-size-fits-all and can be counterproductive or even disastrous if the advice isn’t specific to a particular artist or even a particular work of art in its entirety.
Fortunately, Tracy emailed us for advice.
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Mosaic Furniture Pique Assiette Alternative
Mosaic furniture can be made from glass mosaic tile more easily and more affordably than it can be made from pieces cut from antique china and other patterned dinnerware. It’s also much more colorful! The choices available range from bright rainbow colors to soft pastels to different color families, earth tones, black and white.
You can even render portraits and landscapes on things like headboards because you have a complete rendering tool.
When you use glass tile instead of whatever you could scrounge up from months of yard sales and thrift shops, you start with a lot of horsepower on your side.