More Shading Grout in a Mosaic

Revisiting the topic of shading grout in a mosaic. In a previous post I shaded using two grout colors.

For this project, I shaded between four grout colors. The fade from deep black/green to pale green was chosen to enhance the glass shading.

First step was to play with mixes to find the effect I wanted. I used a plastic spoon, leveled off with a wooden stir stick as a measuring device. Stirred well, the dry mix color will be approximately the same as the finished, cured, color.

(Each recipe was written on the cup so it can be duplicated in the future, assuming those grout colors can be obtained. I used the colors black, mallard green, tea green and straw [no, not pear like it says on the cup, oops :] - for those that might have those colors on hand.)



Working from light to dark, I laid in each color. Since my substrate was glass, I marked it off into sections on the reverse using a sharpie marker. You might be able to see that in the first picture- green marks.

Picture on the right shows the grouted project before much 'smooshing' has happened.






In the left picture, you can see the results of careful cleaning. **Note: NO WATER, and no sponge, is used for this cleaning method.

First I removed excess grout. I started from the light end and moved across the piece from side to side just within that color. Then cleaned my tool (my finger!) and moved down a bit and repeated until I removed a lot of the excess from the entire piece.

Still with the grout very wet and soft, I started again at the light end removing a bit more grout but this time made a zig zag line across from side to side. I continued on down toward the dark end in this zigzag manner and this helped to blend each grout section.

At this point, much of the excess grout has been wiped off and I waited a bit for a haze to develop. I then used a soft cloth to remove the haze, again starting from the light end and working across from side to side. I used a clean section of cloth for each pass.

And here is the finished project, a wall clock.

Anatomy of a Glass Mosaic Light Switch Cover

Click photos to enlarge.

Well, my way of putting switch plates together..

Choose a sturdy, commercially made, base to attach your mosaic too. I now use metal bases. I have used wood in the past but had problems with warping during grouting (yeah, wood and water don't mix), especially for the larger sizes. And I feel the plastic covers have a bit too much flex, at least the ones my sources carry.

Attach your design with your favorite glue- Weldbond, silicone...

Grout! Such a simple, yet critical step.

• Color choice is key. If you are going to add a resin coat, like I do for all mine, you need to base your selection on the wet grout color. Photo at left shows the cured grout color. Looks kind of blah and washed out this way but, when covered in resin, it will revert back to the beautiful contrasts of the wet grout color.
  
• If you use glass for your design, use fine grit sandpaper on all exposed edges before grouting.
• Use wood toothpick, or similar tool, to gently recess the screw hole and to shape the switch or outlet openings. It's got to fit in its new home!
  
• Properly cure the grout before adding resin.

To protect fingers from sharp edges, and to protect grout from finger oils, all my switch plates receive a top coat of a two part resin epoxy. Quite a messy step, and a bit time consuming, but well worth it.

• Read the directions for the resin carefully before you begin and follow them exactly.
  
• Choose all disposable materials for mixing and stirring and be sure you cover your work surface!!
  
• Also, be sure to elevate your project so the excess resin has a place to run off onto. I use a cardboard cylinder or large plastic cups.

Final step- for a complete pulled together look, custom color your screws.

Third Set of Nine Mosaic and Poured Concrete Stepping Stones

I have completed nine more poured concrete and glass stepping stones for my yard.

This is a very ongoing task with the goal of creating about 50 to aid in walking around our side and back areas where we have river rock in place of grass.

Click image to enlarge.

The top left lighthouse (St Augustine, FL) is pieced out of glow-in-the dark tile sections for light. The bottom middle is showing the rainbow of six smaller poured concrete bubbles from the tropical fish. Many of these designs are inspired by Florida nature. The right middle is brain coral and that rooster was one we saw living in Key West.



Interested in making some stones yourself? I did a blog posting a while back with detailed how-to instructions, plus pictures, for making these poured concrete stepping stones- click here to see.

All designs are my own. If you make some stones I hope you use the opportunity to also create your own designs.

Interested in a custom order 14" diameter stepping stone? Visit this page in my MosaicSmith Artfire shop for ordering information: http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=Shop&op=custom_item&seller_id=92567&gid=43795

How To Make Concrete Mosaic Garden Art Ball

You can make very fun garden art using found objects and scrap glass.

This post details how I made the garden ball pictured above, using a glass globe from an old pendant light fixture. You likely don't have one of those handy :) , but a little thinking outside the box and you can come up with other unique 'molds' to make bases for your own personalized garden art.

First- some general supplies:

• Some sort of 'mold'. Ideas- glass bottles, plastic containers such as milk bottles, takeout food containers... IMPORTANT: If you use a plastic form, you must have an opening wide enough for the cured concrete to be removed through. For milk jugs, cut off the entire top before adding concrete mix. The opening needs to be as wide as the widest part of your shape.
  
• concrete mix
• eye protection!, hammer, prying tools
• glass nippers
• scrap stained glass- often local stained glass shops will sell scrap by the pound or ebay and etsy both often will have listings for scrap.
  
• thin set mortar
• grout

Before adding concrete mix, I lightly coated the inside of the shape with a mold release- Vaseline but cooking spray will work in a pinch.

Add concrete mix slowly and tap occasionally (with your hand!) to raise air pockets. Don't want to break that glass yet! If your shape includes thinner sections, you will want to reinforce them with hardware cloth sections embedded in the center. See my stepping stone instructions.

If you use a plastic form, you can unmold, carefully, usually after one day.

If you use glass, WAIT a minimum of 10 days for the concrete to cure before breaking glass. Full cure is at 30 days.







Be sure to wear eye protection when breaking the glass off! I used both the hammer and the knob end of a glass scorer to break the glass in sections. Old dental tools and flat blade screwdrivers worked well to pry off sections.

Now that you have your blank concrete 'canvas', have fun creating!! I used the glass I removed to make the white flowers on my garden ball. They were especially pleasing to work with because the glass was curved and fit nicely back on the ball. I used thin set mortar to attach my glass. This is a weather friendly glue though if you live in a freeze zone, mosaic art lasts longer if brought inside in winter.

For adding flat glass to curved sections, smaller pieces fit around the curves better- and are less hazardous! Use extreme care when handling your piece as there will likely be sharp exposed points and edges. Grouting will minimize this.

Mosaic Art Auction to Benefit Doctors Without Borders

'Dragonfly'
8" x 10" (20 x 25.5cm)
Click image to view larger

Lin Schoor is coordinating, and 126 mosaic artists from around the world have donated pieces for, an on-line auction of mosaic art to benefit Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Above is my mosaic art donation.

About the Show/Auction:
The on-line auction is April 1-27, 2011 at https://www.biddingforgood.com and you can click here to register. You will also be able to view all the mosaic art in person at The Northville Art House 215 West Cady Street, Northville, Michigan, USA April 1-27, 2011.

So, mark your calenders, set a bookmark.. whatever works for you... and check out the fantastic art up for auction. While waiting for the auction to begin, you can pre-view all the art at:
Lin Schoor's Website
Lin Schoor's Facebook Page
Lin Schorr's Flickr Set


About 'Dragonfly':
Dragonfly is from a photo I took of a happy dragonfly visiting my Tangelo tree.

He is a layered 3D mosaic composed of a base layer of leaves created with stained glass, more stained glass create three leaves at the bottom and lower left.

The dragonfly himself is pieced from glass gems and glass found in the cull pile at the old Levay Glass Factory (Old Milton School House in Alton, Il- currently under renovation- see their facebook page.) There is a bit of brown bottle glass in there too. His legs are copper wire coated with grout/weldbond glue and the wings are clear glass etched with an engraving tool .

All exposed glass edges are wet sanded to soften the sharp edges. Frame is painted wood and the back is sealed with paint as well. Wired for hanging with stainless steel wire. Interested in in-progress photos? There are a few in my MosaicSmith flickr account.

Making of my Mosaic 'Journey' Wall Art

"Journey"
10" x 10"
Click to enlarge

My mosaic, 'Journey', in addition to the obvious, tells the story of my own mosaic journey beginning with the use of glass tile (on reverse), to stained glass (front outer section), to a mix of tessearae and most recently exploring the use of smalti glass (center square).

There is actually a third journey to this piece and that is the transformation of an ordinary IKEA Malma mirror (see second photo below) into the substrate for this mosaic.

Some background: This mosaic began with a call to artists with a stipulation for square mosaic art. Hmm. I remembered the square IKEA mirrors I have. OK, that might work. And the square format seemed like a good fit with a photo of a gorgeous sunset I took this summer (from the passenger seat :). With these two ingredients in mind, I mulled this over and came up with the mosaic journey concept.

The journey begins on the reverse where I reproduced a wall quilt I made years ago. Vitreous tile was used since it was the first material I played with to create a simple mosaic table top. This represents my transition from piecing with fabric to piecing with glass.

I used a border of thick glass to make the surface level. I filled in the center mirror back area to level the surface as well- visible here as the gold in the spaces as this is before grouting.



These IKEA mirrors are very plain and simple ==>

But they have a broad flat border and a recessed mirror that would work here to add depth to the scene.








To further add depth I built up a third level around the perimeter using 2" wide black glass. And to frame that, I used 1/4" thin glass strips on top of the 2" wide glass.
Note- I used mitered corners throughout to add to the one point perspective of the image.







Each section is divided with strips of stained glass, placed on end. (I use wet sanding paper along the long edge corners to reduce sharpness of glass whenever I place it on end like this- people like to touch mosaics!)

Here you can see I chose to color coordinate the frame around the center (smalti on mirror) section but used solid black to divide the outer-most pieced stained glass area from the mixed-media center section.

A note on glue- Most of this mosaic is pieced using Weldbond but the smalti was attached to the mirror using silicone adhesive. To eliminate any reflection in the space between the smalti, I made sure there was silicone glue on all exposed bits of mirror.

The mosaic was finished with more strips of black on the outer edges and grouted in black and natural grey. And not a bit of the original IKEA mirror is visable, front or back.

Spring!! - Adventures with B-cut Smalti

Spring!!
19" x 16"
Mexican Smalti, Vitreous Tile and Stained Glass
Click image to view larger

Last spring, a lot of happenings came together to result in my newest mosaic wall art piece.

First I started researching smalti. Smalti is a glass material with strong traditional roots in mosaic, and is also traditionally laid in such a way as to eliminate the need for grout. Grout can be a wonderful design element (see my self portrait- upper left corner or here) but sometimes I've not wanted to add to or change the pieced look.


Soooo... I bought a hammer & hardie plus a (large :) variety of smalti and stone.

I initially purchased this cool slab of smalti ==> , a 'B-cut', with the thought of using it as water. But a bit of serendipity happened when I realized it was perfect for the shirt on a boy my daughter photographed in February.

I was loving the boy's personal celebration of a beautiful spring day (after a very cold winter). I was thinking, as adults, we sometimes loose the appreciation of the day like he had.


Plan in hand, what ensued was a lot of fun with the hammer and hardie as I sheered that glass slab into shirt pieces.

Mexican smalti was used to piece the shirt sleeves as well as the rest of the boy.



To emphasize the boy and the shadows, I chose to have a large surround of grassy lawn. And to further add emphasis, I chose nipped up vitreous tile for the grass and I laid the tile very flat. Graduated piece sizes, and shades, helped to add depth to the lawn.

While I was in the midst of piecing, a call for artists arrived for the Member's Show at the Morean Arts Center in St Petersburg, FL. The theme is "The Way Forward: Roads Less Traveled". I felt this piece fit the theme well, so submitted it for the show. And I guess the curator's also felt the piece fit the theme as they have used it in promotional literature for the show!

The show runs through September 26, 2010 at 719 Central Avenue, St Petersburg, FL

Just Ducky - Adventures in Mixed Media Mosaics

"Just Ducky"

9" x 11.5" (23 x 29.3cm)

Mixed Media Mosaic on Concrete Board

Catching up on my blogging here. I completed "Just Ducky" this past spring but his roots were actually from spring of 2008 when I purchased a cool slice of agate from Mosaic Rocks at the SAMA show in Miami.

The agate slice had me thinking of an animal eye and, eventually, a Mallard duck.

Now using a slice of rock to represent an eye was rather unconventional, so I decided to go unconventional with my mix of materials too. Lots of fun, and mess, ensued while I pulled out anything in Mallard colors from my stash. Stained glass, fused glass, polished stones, glass beads (some iridescent for a bit of that Mallard shine), vitreous tile bits, ... to name a few.

A fun bonus was using my new hammer & hardie to nip up the marble for the background.

Oh, and since this guy is built on top of concrete board, with pieces attached using Thin-set mortar (tinted black) and has stainless steel hanging hardware, he can even live outside and get wet like a duck :)

A Manga Style Mosaic - Fierce Despite the Tears.

'Fierce Despite the Tears'
10 1/4" x 12 1/2"
Click photo to enlarge

I recently completed this stained glass mosaic of an elf in collaboration with my 14 year old daughter. It is based on one of her original drawings done in the manga style.

<= Her drawing. (This is done in pen by the way.)

To convert for mosaicing, with the aide of tracing paper and a copy machine, we added lines while trying to keep the original spirit.

We also tweaked the background with the addition of falling sakura petals in pale pink.

Although the original was done in just purple pen, she had a definite vision for a full color version and all glass choices, as well as grout color choices, were hers.

We are both pleased with the resulting mosaic and I'll be keeping an eye on her drawings for possible collaborations in the future.

Mosaic Journey - Learning How to Mosaic a Pot

Spring time brings with it my desire for gardening and this cold, cold winter (yes, even here in Florida!) had me dreaming of mosaicing garden pots.

I did my first pots last December (as gifts) and this was a bit of new territory for me. I did what I usually do and turned to books and the Internet for some how-to. And wow, lots of variations to be found on prepping the terracotta pot: 1.weldbond/water on outside penetrating sealer on inside 2. weldbond/water on outside yacht varnish on inside 3. house paint inside and out 4. weldbond/water inside and out...

I decided to go with variation #2 and to use thin set mortar to attach the ceramic pieces to the pot.

I painted the inside of my terracotta pot with spar varnish. This would seal the interior and prevent water from penetrating and soaking through to the mosaic which would compromise the mosaic's thin set mortar bond to the pot.

The outside of the pot I painted with a mixture of five parts water/one part weldbond glue. This soaked into the terracotta. I chose this method of sealing because it would reduce the water absorption from the thin set mortar. Unsealed terracotta is so porous that it will absorb water from thin set quickly, which weakens the thin set. I also suspect that the weldbond softens a bit from the thin set moisture and then bonds with the thin set resulting in a stronger bond of the mosaic to the pot.

Why thin set mortar? Another common choice would be weldbond. But, I know from experience (glass on glass project) that if moisture gets down to the weldbond- and we are talking about an outdoor pot here! -that the weldbond will go soft and white again. Additionally the weldbond is best for attaching flat surface to flat surface. A silicone type glue would work but I feel the thin set attaches more firmly to porous surfaces. Thin set also excels at bonding irregular tesserae (mugs!) to curved surfaces.

So many choices on what to use to create the mosaic design with. I decided to go with broken plates. (In my location I do not need to worry about freeze/thaw but if you do, look for hardier choices or bring your garden pot inside for the winter.) So I checked my local thrift stores for goodies and also etsy.

These lovely mugs came from ceramic artist Judy B Freeman.



Many ceramic artists on etsy will occasionally offer for sale a box of broken rejects specifically for mosaic use.









To the left you can see that I used thin set under the top brim to even out the surface. And you can see more of Judy's awesome butterflies.

After attaching the design with thin set, I grouted the mosaic as usual (use caution with the ceramic edges- SHARP!) and applied a sealer after the grout cured for three days.

And below are three views of another pot also made with Judy's butterfly mugs as a design inspiration. There is now a tomato plant happily growing in this pot.