MosaicSmith Blog

Saturday, August 25, 2007

New WIP- Dahlia Star Mosaic Clock

I thought I'd start off my blog with work in progress (WIP) pictures of my latest mosaic clock.


This mosaic is a bit of a departure for me since pink is usually NOT on my favorites list. Not that I hate it or anything but if you check my other work you see that I have a strong affinity for orange. So, because I know orange is a color that people have strong feelings about, I pulled out some other colors to play with. This came together from an inspiring magazine photo of a Dahlia, a clock works I had with great scroll hands and nice deep brown pieces I had left from another project. I just started playing. The color pieces are stained glass. The substrate is a 12" x 12" piece of concrete board attached with brass screws to a solid pine support frame.

The rest of the design evolved to solve the problem of how to indicate time- this is a clock after all. I hate clocks that make you guess too much. I always indicate at least where the hour numbers are in a creative way. My quilting background is showing here- I used a 12 point star of my own design and cut out little graph paper patterns. A sharpie is essential for marking glass- quilting rulers are fantastic with glass too.


Looks like I'm nearing the end now that the top glass is all laid out? Not quite. Next up is a date with a cup, or two, of thin-set mortar. Each piece is now individually back buttered with thin-set and put back into place. Popsicle sticks are wonderful. So are tweezers and dental probes. And that ruler was handy again to make sure the clock hour indicators were where they belong. The whole gluing process took about two hours. Well, that did include time using the grinder to fit the inner white triangles around the flower petals.

The clock hands are just laying on top to approximate the finished look. I'll grout this in white most likely. But first I need to add glass to the edges. I also need to paint the back of the mosaic to seal it and add the clock works and hanging wire. After it is grouted, I'll seal the grout as well. Then look for it for sale on etsy.






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This clock has sold.

I create original design silver jewelry too!! 
https://www.mosaicsmith.com/collections/all   or
https://www.etsy.com/shop/MosaicSmith

5 comments:

Shell Mitchell said...

Looking good! Can't wait to see it finished.

Krazy Kate Designs said...

beautiful! And I'm not into pink, so it must be for me to say it!

Simply Wired Custom Jewelry said...

I love your clock! You have really unique stuff on here, and your photos really stand out. For just getting your blog started, you're doing great!

Jyoti Bhargava said...

I've skimmed through your full blog in a single seating! Happy to see how your work has evolved from stained glass to jewellery. I've been playing with vitrous glass tiles for a few months and now I'm hoping to try my hand on scoring/cutting stained glass. Feels like a different ball game as it'd require more work space and care than the small glass tiles do. And yet I'm desperate to expand my media base so I can use bigger pieces of glass.
Will keep in touch with your work through yoir FB page. And yes, I like many elements of your work but simply adore your portrait!
Regards, Jyoti (India)

Linda Pieroth Smith said...

Thank you, Jyoti, for your kind words and taking the time to write! I hope you get the chance to create with stained glass too. It opens up so many design possibilities when you can shape your own pieces.
Happy mosaicing,
Linda