Fortunately, another project has forced its way up to the top of the queue. Michael and I are teaching a class in marble mosaics in a few weeks at the Chicago Mosaic School. We will talk about Roman mosaic traditions, design patterns, and techniques. Then have participants work on their own mosaic using our the stone mosaic tiles (which are fabulous, I must say).
Our plan is to provide patterns for 5-10 designs from which participants can choose. But we first want to create the mosaics ourselves to work through any issues in advance. This means that I need to walk away from the computer and actually make mosaics for a change. Yippie!
For the patterns, I borrowed from Lynn Moor an incredible book that catalogues Roman mosaic geometric design patters titled: Le Decor Geometrique de la Mosaique Romaine. The book (Vol 1 of a two volume set) has hundreds of pen & ink reproductions of Roman patterns. It's quite humbling.
I selected these patterns to start with:
Most are fairly advanced - but there are a few which will be appropriate for a beginning mosaicist. These will eventually become Mosaic Kits which will be added to our collection in the Mosaic Rocks shop.
I am working on the pattern in the upper left. Michael just started working on the one in the lower left.
Here's the progress so far.
We're working on an 11" x 11" MDF board. (11 inches is a good size- not for any artistic reasons, however. It fits into a USPS flat rate box.) I traced the pattern onto the board and sealed the board with a wash of Weldbond and water.
I'm using the stone mosaic tiles which are roughly 1/2" x 1/2" x 1/4" and cutting them into quarters. The tiles are glued directly onto the substrate. The colors in this piece are: Pure Black, Green Jade, Mugwort Green, Red Travertine, Rose Empress, Crema Marfil, and China Beige.
I started with the outline of the design/flower. Then filled in a couple of the petals.
These two did not turn out very well. It takes a couple of attempts to figure out how to lay the stones to get the correct placement and shading - something which is very important in a geometric design in which consistency is key.
Instead of starting at the top, I found that it's important to lay down the line of stones at the base of the upper arch. This is also the line where the darker stones transitions into the lighter stones.
The stones in the upper arch can now be filled in. Each arch isn't exactly the same, but there is space for two lines of stone which can be cut to shape to fit in the space.
I next start at the bottom and work up, trying to keep the rows even with the ones in the other petals. This will create a nice circle pattern. Eventually, I get to the row which transitions from the cream colored marble to the light gray/green marble. The row alternates the two stones.
I then fill in the gray/green stones, cutting them to shape so that the fit in the remaining space.
I am trying to create another effect by increasing the widths of the rows as they move up the circle. The row of the petal closest to the center is fairly thin with each row progressively getting larger.
Here's the piece so far. I next need to fill in the background. I like how the shading turned out. And I like the circular movement of the stones.
Marble is interesting. By itself, each stone looks fairly dull, but when placed next to other stones - even ones with a similar color hue - its true beauty really shines.
I've found something similar with smalti - but in an opposite way. One color of smalti has such a bold color, but when placed adjacent to other colors, the boldness is somewhat muted and the magic of color blending happens. There have been times when I was reluctant to use a color of smalti thinking that it wouldn't work in the piece, but when I combined it with other colors, it worked just fine. The same holds true for marble.
This piece is almost done. Then it's on to the next.
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