More Progress on the Mosaic Kits

I finished the fist of the Roman Mosaic patterns. The color blending and andamento turned out quite well.

So onto the next design. This is the top middle design in the Roman pattern list (scroll down to see the 9 designs).

Things started out quite well. Again, the color blending in the inner arches worked well going from Gold Travertine to Yellow Cream to Crema Marfil.

But things fell apart when I tried to fill in the space between the arches and the inner square. I should have measured the distance between the arch and the square better. Instead I glued the square first, then discovered that the space was too big for two rows of stone but too small for three. It took a while to figure out how to best to the andamento and I'm still not sure if I got it correct. You can see one approach in the bottom center and a different approach in the left center sections of the circle.

One way or another, the execution is a disaster. I will throw this out and start again.

My original thinking was that this would be an easy design for someone who is relatively new to mosaics (not necessarily at the beginning level, however), but I'm not so sure about this. Cutting and laying those central white stones takes technique - unless I find an easier way to do it that looks good and is consistent with Roman design patterns.

So, giving up on the circle, I started working on the floral design. This is coming along well and in some respects is easier to do than the circle, although the pieces are fairly small.

The green marble is not easy to work with. This is the Green Jade tile. It's a beautiful color, but like all green marbles, it's difficult to cut and nearly impossible to shape into a specific size or angled cut. I found that the best way to do the leaves was to cut many small (i.e. tiny) pieces of green tile first and then build the design with the squares. You can easily make an arch with anything that's small enough.

The background of the piece will be white. I chose light brown for the star to keep an earth-tone color palette, and I didn't want a sharp contrast between the star and the background. Hopefully this will draw more attention to the flowers and not to the star.