Silent Beauty - Mixed Media Mosaic Butterfly

My butterfly wall mosaic, pieced from stained glass and Mexican smalti glass, is now complete!

"Silent Beauty"

From a photo I took of a Mangrove Buckeye Butterfly at the Manatee Viewing Center, FL

~ 11" x 7" . 

The butterfly portion was pieced from stained glass using a double indirect method.  See previous post for a WIP picture.  After piecing (on sticky paper), I glued paper to the face, flipped the mosaic and peeled off the sticky paper. I then adhered it to a section of concrete board using thin-set mortar. This portion is grouted in mocha brown.

The background was pieced with Mexican smalti laid with the direct method. The flowers and major leaves pieced first, then the accent reeds in tan, and finally the rest of the background. The background is grouted in black. Generally smalti type glass is not grouted, but the Mexican type is smooth on the face (vs the Italian type that is used cut edge up and often will have tiny air bubbles that fill in when grout is used) and I felt the black grout would help the background to recede and the butterfly to 'pop'.  

Finished with an edge of black stained glass. Wired and ready to hang.

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.


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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 right 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 curators 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

This mosaic is not available.

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