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Impulse Art Projects: A Case Study In Sculptured Concrete
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…
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Alternative Mosaic Mailbox Designs
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…
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How To Pry Up Tiles To Modify A Mosaic
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…
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Strong Color Contrast in Heazlewood Mosaics
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 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…
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Kitchen Backsplash Mosaics Using Original Designs
If you search Google Images for “kitchen backsplash mosaics,” you can see some good work, but you will also see way too many photos of beige and gray tile work that really doesn’t help too much in the way of inspiration, especially if you are wanting to make an original figurative mosaic or use colors…
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Re-Imagining Classic Geometric Mosaic Designs
One of the things I always notice in cities like New York or San Francisco are the older buildings that still have entrance ways and bathrooms with mosaics made from whole porcelain tile. These mosaics are very simple in design, sometimes merely a border around plain tile, or maybe a simple repeating geometric pattern. If…
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The Power Of Black in Mosaic Design
I have written many times about black grout and why I recommend it for making tile colors look more intense, but I don’t think I have ever taken the time to talk about using black tile for the same reason. Artist Carol Jasin recently emailed me some photos of her work, and she makes great…
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Mosaic Picture Frame
Angela made a mosaic picture frame using our irregular glazed ceramic tile and left the sides of the frame uncovered. She also nested the angular shapes to created an abstract pattern without cutting any of the tiles to make them fit. The unfinished side edges of Angela’s mosaic look particularly neat because the sides of the…
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Using Ceramic Figurines In Mosaic Art
Why break up ceramic figurines to use the pieces in mosaic artwork when you can use the whole figurine? Artist Laurie Gilson emailed me some photos of her recent work, and they are great examples of how you can use ceramic figurines in your mosaics and still use standard elements such as tile arranged in rows.
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Porch and Entranceway Mosaics
Ana Bonnin emailed us some pictures of her recent entranceway mosaic, and I wanted to share these with our readers. Ana’s pictures also made me remember that I needed to summarize what I know about best practices for making porch mosaics last longer. Ana’s mosaic is the family emblem that she and her husband designed to…
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Mosaic Lawn Sculptures
Artist Marilyn Keating has some mosaic lawn sculptures of animals that are very much worth seeing, especially if you are considering making some yourself. Rather than trying to make her animals as naturalistic as possible, Marilyn wisely chose to make her animals stylized and whimsical, almost like three-dimensional cartoons come to life. I used the…
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How To Efficiently Make Mosaic Christmas Ornaments
Artist Phyllis Kempter emailed me some photos of the ornaments she made using our kits for 3-inch spherical mosaic Christmas ornaments and our 12mm recycled glass tile (plus a few other sizes of tile), and her ornaments caught my eye for two reasons: First, she used green in the patterns for her ornaments, which is good to do…