Mosaic Rocks!

Hello world!

I thought it would be fun to enter the blogosphere world. This will be a good forum to talk informally about mosaics, our business (Mosaic Rocks!), and some of the projects we're working on.

Maybe I'm crazy to take on another web project. With Mosaic Rocks, Mosaic Atlas, Mosaic Yearbook, and the SAMA websites, I definitely have my hands full. But they all are too formal with little or no opportunity for personal expression much less feedback from others. (Maybe I have too much time on my hands.)

But everyone seems to be blogging these days, so why not give it a try and see what happens? Besides, it's always good and fun to talk mosaic, and this is an easy way to do it.

Current Projects

One of the highlights of our last trip to Italy - besides the Orsoni class - was a trip to Spilimbergo and tour of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli. This is a 3-year trade school for aspiring mosaic artists and fabricators. Needless to say, it was a very humbling experience. The artwork which adorned the walls was incredible enough, but the projects and lessons the students were working on made me want to crawl into a hole and throw away any thoughts I had about becoming a half-way decent mosaic artist. However, humility turned into inspiration. After all, if these "kids" can do mosaic (ages 16-25), so can I.

As part of their first year, students simply recreate classical mosaics - piece by piece, row by row. Even though there's nothing "original" with doing this, it seemed like a good exercise to learn technique, work through some of the challenges which early mosaic artists faced, and see how they solved those problems.

So I decided to spend the next year or so recreating some classical mosaics. This also coincided with our opening Mosaic Rocks, and I saw this exercise as a way to become more familiar with some of the new marble stones which we're carrying.

So far, I've completed two pieces: a bird from the floor of the Basilica of Aquileia and a fish medallion from Villa Romana del Casale in Sicily.


Both are done using marble & travertine stones - direct technique - no grouting.

I'm amazed at the depth and richness of color in these pieces, particularly from such a limited palette in these stones. If I remember correctly, I used only 6 different stone colors for each of these pieces - although there is some variation in color with pieces in any individual type of stone.

Luke

I started a new project last week. It’s a reproduction of a mosaic of St Luke found in the Baptistery in San Marco, Venice. Fortunately I found a good photo of the mosaic which clearly shows the tesserae in the mosaic.


I'm not sure what appeals to me about this piece. It's got to be something in his expression. I'm not sure if it's an expression of sternness, melancholy, or wonder. Even though the original is made with smalti, I thought it would be a good exercise to continue using stone and to try to capture his expression with a more limited palette of colors available to me.

I also though it would be a good exercise to work with smaller pieces of tesesserae. I don't know the original size of the mosaic. I expect quite large. The substrate I'm using is 12" (width) x 14" (height). The section of the mosaic which I'm doing includes all of his face and a portion of his garment. Most pieces in the mosaic will be about 5mm in width/length.

Tracking progress on this piece was one of the motivators to do this blog.

For the face, I selected 9 stones from our marble mosaic tile selection. The flesh tones include: Botticino, Pink Cream, Yellow Cream, and Gold Travertine. The browns for the hair and shadows include: China Beige, Emperador Light, Brown Red, Emperador Dark, and Rojo Alicante.


I like working with these tiles. They're easy to split with a hammer and hardie - or nippers and then cut into smaller cubes with my pair of Leponitt wheeled nippers. (Yea, I'm not using a hammer & hardie as required of the students in Spilimbergo. The Leps are quick & easy and do just as good of a job. Call me lazy.)

On the computer I blew up the photo and then traced it onto the substrate using carbon paper. As you can see from the photo (below) my tracing wasn't that good. Should have pressed down a lot harder. But that's OK. I have the general outline of the piece, and I can draw in the andamento as I go.

I started with the eyes this time. In previous portraits, I always started with the forehead and worked down. This time, I wanted to start with the eyes. I have more patience when I start a project. Midway through when I see the mosaic emerging, I have less patience and tend to work quicker than I should. So I thought it best to do the eyes first. These require more precise cutting and placement than any other part of the portrait.

Here's my progress so far:

Starting the eyes.

Filling in the nose.

I like the right eye better than the left.

Dude, what big eyebrows you have!