Tag: contemporary mosaic
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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 HeazlewoodThere 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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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 other than the monotonous earth tones that dominate the coverings industry.
Artist Heather Speers emailed me some photos of her recent kitchen backsplash mosaic, and it is a solid example of how figurative mosaics rendered in brighter colors can work for this location.
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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 there are objects or figures, they are simple stylized abstract motifs almost like those seen in Persian carpets.
Rebecca Stoops recently emailed us some photos of her bathroom mosaic project, and the design could be described as a re-imaging of those classic geometric designs, only executed in intense colors of vitreous glass tile instead of porcelain.
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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 ceramic tile is straight and not beveled like the sides of vitreous glass mosaic tile, which could still be used if you didn’t mind an edge that was a little rougher.
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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 represent the parents (symbolized by oak leaves) protecting their seed. My favorite photo includes the doodlebug in question, with a disguise added digitally by Mommy.
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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 if you think the ornament might by hung on something other than a Christmas tree, at least some of the time. Green might not help the ornament stand out on the tree as well as red would, but it goes a long way toward suggesting Christmas when the ornament is not on a tree, especially when used with red.
Second, one of her photos was of her well-organized work space, and it illustrates several methods and tips for making the tiling process easier and faster.
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Everything I Told You About Mosaic Art Is Wrong
Artist Apryl Howard sent me some pictures of her recent Arizona Sunset Mosaic, and it is the exception to several “rules” I have recommended over the years. It is also a great silhouette landscape that captures the color of light and is worth seeing merely for inspiration and ideas for your own artwork.
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Making Detailed Mosaic Images Using Whole Uncut Tile
To make detailed mosaic images using whole uncut tile, you need to use a tiny brand, such as the 8mm Recycled Glass Mosaic Tile by Morjo™ that we sell. You also need to make sure the image is large enough to accommodate the level of detail.
The Tree Mosaic recently completed by artist Robert Friedlander is good example of the relationships between the size of the tile, the size of the details to be rendered, and the size of the image as a whole.
It made me very happy when Robert told me that the mosaic was made with our new Morjo brand., but I was even more excited by how successful the project was in terms of contrast and visual impact and it being a good teaching example of how to use rows of whole tile without a rigid grid.
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Creating Motion Using Curved Andamento
Artists can create a sense of motion in their mosaics by using concentric curved rows of tile, especially in the background around figures.
To me this use of andamento* is one of the most interesting aspects of mosaic, and it is an easy way for novices to make art that really engages the eye. I used this technique in the first mosaic I ever made, and when I used a photo of that mosaic to make our logo, I blacked out the figure of the fire bird to emphasize how much of the sense of motion was creation was created by the andamento in the background.
*The Joy of Shards mosaic website defines andamento as the visual flow and direction within a mosaic produced by the placement of rows of tesserae (pieces of tile).
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Increase Visual Interest by Using Variegated Colors
You can increase visual interest in your mosaic by using variegated colors (multiple colors in patches or streaks) instead of monochromatic fields of only one color. This technique is particularly effective if your design is relatively simple and made from outlined areas of color like a coloring book or cartoon.
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Black Grout vs White Grout
Black grouts bring out the intensity of tile colors while white grouts overwhelm them. Natalie Knox’s Day of the Dead Skull mosaic is a good example of how well black grouts work and how a light colored backer isn’t a good indicator of the mosaic would look with white grout.
Don’t Be FooledIf you lay the mosaic out on a white backer and try to use that as an indication of what the mosaic will look like with white grout, remember this:
When the gaps are filled with grout, they won’t have all the contrast provided by empty gaps, which have depth and shadow. A lot of white concrete at the same level as the surface of the glass tends to make the colors look washed out.
