Category: Material and Tool Information
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Imperfection as Grout Gap
The Blue Crab mosaic I recently completed is a good example of how to create a grout gap by making use of imperfect cuts instead of spacing the tiles intentionally. The “imperfect cut” method makes the process of creating a mosaic faster, easier, and less tedious -first in the cutting and placing of tiles but…
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Drainage Concerns for Garden Mosaics
Artist Sandra Christie of Married Metals emailed me some questions about an outdoor mosaic she wanted to make for her garden area in Connecticut. The mosaic will be on a 50-square-foot slab of concrete that will be poured to make a short walkway into a fenced garden area. Sandra’s initial questions didn’t emphasize drainage in…
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Grid Mosaic Teaching Tool
My 13-year-old son made some mosaics on our 4-inch bamboo coasters with me. His designs are also figurative and iconic, but unlike the mosaics I have been making, his designs use whole uncut tiles. My son’s designs are all Minecraft-inspired images, and so the blocky nature of uncut square 8-mm tiles was perfect: Minecraft-Inspired Mosaics…
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Correcting Skew with Photoshop
Recent blog articles have required that I use Adobe’s Photoshop software to correct the foreshortening and skewed angles in the original photographs sent in by the artists. You can avoid foreshortening and skewed angles when photographing your artwork using the tips I have at the end of my post about frames for mosaic art. However,…
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Marble Mosaic Restoration
Angela Bortone and Natalija Moss recently restored a marble mosaic interpretation of a detail from Botticelli’s Venus, the well-known Renaissance painting. They used the Hercules Precision Stone Chopping Machine to cut the Mable Mosaic Cutting Strips they used for the work. Note that many colors of our Mable Mosaic Cutting Strips are currently out of…
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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.
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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 mirrorsframes made using molding and a miter sawframes made from recycled…
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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…
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Cutting Glass Mosaic Tile: A Practical Guide
Designs are said to be elegant when they “don’t try to push things uphill” but instead go with the natural flow of materials and forces. Consider the Roman arch versus a rectangular doorway with a flat lintel on the top. The flat lintel could be constructed from a superior material than that used in the…
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Glass-On-Glass Mosaic Grout Color
Artist Laura Adams emailed me for advice on selecting a grout color for her glass-on-glass mosaic, and it is a good case study for several reasons. First, the sky of the mosaic is a whitish gray. Second, Laura made sure to photograph the mosaic with two different lighting regimes: backlit from behind and regular lighting…
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Knight Park Mosaic Sculpture
Artists Angela Bortone and Natalija Moss have discovered a new way to do huge amounts of extreme physical labor in an unheated loading dock. They call this latest folly the Knight Park Mosaic Sculpture. I know from past experiences with my own large sculptural projects that Angela and Natalija have doubted their own rationality if…
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Agonizing Over Mosaic Icons
Artist Sue Hague’s mosaic icons are reproductions of medieval, byzantine, and early Christian icons, and some are mosaic interpretations of icons that were originally paintings. The mosaics Sue produced from these paintings were made with authentic andamento and look as if ancient mosaics were copied tile by tile. Sue describes herself as a beginner still…