Day Nineteen

Very little got done today. I tidied up a bit and started another motif, but other resposibilites took me away from the mosaic. I missed it!

Day Eighteen

The adhesive sealer was very watery and somewhat odoriferous but seems to have set up well. I painted it on in the morning, opened a window to ventilate and left the room for a couple of hours.

I returned after lunch and happily sketched the general lines on the wall at last using pencil and my trusty rulers. I checked my already completed motifs in the actual spots and made a few adjustments. I still had time to set up one more motif and plan out the remaining four.

Day Seventeen

I am feeling a bit under the weather today - the Greenhouse was a bit on the chilly side yesterday. This morning we have snow - just a light dusting, which brings out really instructive views of the highlights on the foliage in the garden. It is not often that a garden in full spring glory gets snowed upon, although here in the Berkshires it happens more than we really like - freezing is not good for setting fruit! And it wrecks havoc with tender tree blossoms.

Listening to Grisham's The Broker while forging ahead with the motifs was a great way to spend the afternoon, though I should have had the space heater at a higher setting and I should have put on my SmartWool socks earlier.  https://www.smartwool.com/
Now I am headachy and sniffly.
Even so, I will paint the primer today. Milos has been tending the wall with great effort and precision. The surface is as smooth as a baby's bottom now. The heater is on and Milos has found me a good brush from his tool emporium.

Day Sixteen

The mesh arrived! I immediately got to work using the Weldbond glue to transfer the motifs I have saved with gum-back paper film. It was difficult to deal with the variations in tile thickness, but I solved that by slicing in with a utility knife to release the tiles that were too high up, adhering to the film and not making good contact with the mesh. It is good to put glue on both the tile and the mesh to ensure a good bond. The mesh and glue as well as many of the tiles were purchased from Mosaic Art Supply - see link below. Joe Moorman who handled my order is very responsive and friendly.

http://www.mosaicartsupply.com/ceramicmosaictile.htm

Day Fifteen

Making a mosiac wall defines the maxim "Easier said than done."

 I am up against a wall!

But I love it!
Milos has been working on the surface of the wall - or substrate. Since we ditched the idea of adding a slab of plywood, he has been trying to make the surface tile ready, using spackle to level out the uneven parts. We had a discussion about whether using bin paint primer would be a good idea. We decided no. The adhesive primer will be fine. We hope.
I then continued making up motif segments. Here you can see corner designs - the back side of one and the front side of the other - from the inner central area just to the left and right of the arch. I sure hope this method will work out. I need that mosaic mesh to arrive soon!

Day Fourteen

I am continuing to create motif sheets while waiting for my mosaic mesh to arrive by mail.

Day Thirteen

Making mosaic makes sense for me...

 it combines several of my artistic preferences and personality traits.

Artistic

• color: variations, combinations and relationships, the use of transparent and opaque colors, fascination with effects of glass reflectivity and transparency (window and mirrors, crystals) 
• piecing shapes, as in puzzles, making clothing and knitting patterns, weaving beads... discovering the keys to making all parts work together in unity to make a cohesive whole (I do a daily "evil" Sudoku: the sudoku site I use) 
• planning a design on strong geometrical foundations, measurement and applied math - ratio and proportion 
• awareness of line to create unity, visual flow and movement

Personality

• taking risks in trying new ways of expression 
• creating a stable environment
• having a sense of history: past, present and future 
• desire to conquer psychological fear (it is interesting to me at least that I have gone from learning to spin wool (soft soft soft non-threatening) to cutting glass (sharp sharp sharp very threatening)
• being physically active in a non-competitive way

Day Twelve

It has been almost two weeks and I still have a long way to go. The most exciting thing that happened was that after my discovery that I have some sticky drafting film (like clear contac paper) that I can use to stabilize the tiles I've laid out on the parchment paper, I saw that the grid on the sticky backing is at a perfect scale. Parchment paper - sold in the supermarket in the food wraps aisle and also in the baking aisle - is coated with silicone. The sticky paper doesn't adhere to the parchment but it adheres to the tiles, though I have to press on each tile to make sure there is good contact, because the tiles have slight variations in thickness.
Now, while I am waiting for my mosaic mesh and pvc glue to arrive, I can still start planning out the arrangements for each motif in "opus vermiculatum" keeping in mind the art nouveau principles (see Day Eight).

I am trying to remember to plan for the fact that the spacings and the grout colors will add a big dimension to the look of the finished mosaic. Above you can see how a different backing color affects the perception of the tile color. On the left the tile looks much lighter than it does on the right. First look left and stare a second, then move your eyes to the right. I removed all background tiles. I realize I will have to glue the figures first, grout in brown, THEN add the white/light background tiles and grout in white/light gray.
I can't forget to mention I made a video of myself cutting glass. Click on  How To Cut Glass for a Mosaic to see me demonstrate at my website.

Day Eleven

Milos found me a card table. Now my containers are up off the floor. I moved furniture around and set up the room to function better as a mosaic studio.  It was a great day. I made a lot of progress. I realize that for my "figures"

I absolutely have to use smaller pieces. I laid out the 3/4 inch tiles on my first motif and saw that the chunky look is not for me. Luckily another package arrived today: the nippers!!!

I had to really get busy cutting glass and grew more and more comfortable with the cutting machine. I love that the machines I use are not electric. I like a quiet workspace so that I can listen to the radio or a book on tape while I do the routine work. I usually need quiet to think through the initial conceptualizing and measuring however, though I am able to filter out a lot. I made a video of how I cut the class that I have put on my www.artrebecca.com website under "Art Demonstrations."

Day Ten

Today I worked to prepare the tiles for use. I soaked the tiles that came glued on paper much like grids of button candy, and piece by piece removed them and sorted the colors in empty tofu containers. That was easy. The hard part was summoning the courage to cut glass - I have never done this before and I was quite fearful of flying splinters. Watching the YouTube videos helped dispel a lot of my reticence. Realizing that my tool options did not include "breaking nippers" my only option for cutting the 6" squares into small pieces was the big gun gadget Milos bought. I took it out of the box and studied the pictures. There were no written directions. I solved the problem that the machine was designed for thicker tiles by cutting a part of the heavy cardboard off the back of a sketch pad and setting it on top of the black foam grip of the machine work surface. My first cut was the most difficult as I squinched my face up and pressed, sliding the bar forward over the glass. I was relieved to hear that squeaky/prickly sound of the top layer of glass getting scratched. Then by pressing down on the handle the built-in breaking nipper snapped the split down over a slightly raised bar in the center. It worked, but there were incidental sliverings, many very fine, that remain as a kind of residue. I taped a cut-open a grocery bag to the board and slipped a piece of paper underneath too. Periodically I shook the minute shavings into a trash box I had set up under the table. Some of my cuts went better than others, but I never even got a cut or a splinter. Some of the glass cut more easily than others. The most difficult thing to do was cutting 3/8 inch strips and then cutting those into little squares. I ended up with some irregular shapes, but I probably will need some of these pieces to fill in awkward spots on the mosaic. I swabbed oil on the blade from time to time with a q-tip to keep it in good shape. In the image above you can see some strips of white glass I cut.

Custom Jewelry

Above is an image I made in beads while fooling around trying to think up a design. Below are some jewelry designs that are not on my etsy site at rebeccanebesar.etsy.com
in case you would like to see more variety.

Day Nine

I was heading out to the garden to do some weeding and discovered two boxes on the steps. The tiles arrived! Even though I'd ordered from two suppliers - one in Georgia and the other in Minnesota, they both ended up together on the same truck. The boxes weighed 43 pounds. I got them to the greenhouse and with great hope opened them.

I was a bit surprised but not disappointed. Very few of the pieces had broken - totally minor chips on the edges of two sheets of the tiles from the smaller box. The biggest surprise was that the swirly stained glass 6" x 6" tiles were not cut. I had assumed that the dimensions indicated the size of a mounted set on mosaic mesh. Another surprise was that the polished marble was 1/4 inch thick - I should have known this. I guess I was so taken in by the green colors that I missed the obvious - stone tiles are always thicker.

I checked out everything and started to play with the pieces. Some came glued on brown paper. I cut off some and soaked them to release them from the backing.
All in all I am very happy with the materials.

I went to youtube to see if there are any good instructional videos on cutting glass - this one was very good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrqPq163yoc
I also watched several others - this one was very good for the design inspiration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb_NhaLtpQk&feature=related
After dinner I started planning my grid. I divided up my design in 30 cm equivalent segments (on my drawing 3.5 cm equals 1 foot - not the best scale! Next time I will be smarter and do all my measurements in cm which are easier to divide. Unfortunately the tiles come in inch measurements - I had had to convert everything to square inches for ordering.) I then used parchment paper to work on the segment number one. This is the design at the far left with the flower pot. It not only is way to the left and is a good place to start - not too obvious or noticeable but symbolizing the place the growth begins. My skills will be growing, starting with the pot. Now I chuckle - today April 20th is some kind of pot holiday I read on Huffington  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Milos set up a saw horse table in the greenhouse. I will be practicing cutting glass today... after I do some gardening. The weather is beautiful!

Day Eight

I am trying to understand the essence of art nouveau - what makes art nouveau different and recognizable. I picked up Owen Jones' The Grammar of Ornament to see if it has art nouveau and discovered it was compiled mid-nineteenth century, too early for a.n. However, many figures and motifs in the designs - asian, moorish, medieval, celtic and all -  have a distinct influence on the a.n. designs - in the colors, the individual figures, and the use of space. What makes art nouveau art nouveau I realize is: 1. incremental sizes: a motif or figure is not always repeated precisely in the same proportions; 2. incremental spacings: the gaps between design elements increases and decreases; 3. segments "off the grid" - diagonals and curves enliven the surface; and 4. regular and irregular variations: a repeated shape in a cluster might be overlapped here, separated out and slightly bigger or differently colored there et cetera. Art Nouveau designs, because of these techniques integrated into  more strict geometrical use of space (opus quadratum) create a sense of life and motion. This week when I will be starting to plan the tile lines and placement, I will keep these principles in mind. My stems will be laid opus vermiculatum. I will also make sure that my spaces left for grouting will be planned carefully for movement, line and color.
This afternoon I will seal the grouting from the main walls of the room with grout sealer - a runny clear liquid that absorbs into the grout and protect it from deterioration.

Day Seven

Milos went to work yesterday on evening out the surface of the foundation wall using spackle. With the 1/8 plywood and the 1/8 inch thick mosaic tiles the finished mosaic should transition nicely up from the yttrium tiles on the bottom section of the wall.

I ordered the mosaic cloth and a small bottle of special pvc glue. Also, the nippers are on their way - problem solved.

Day Six

Another book on mosaics I ordered arrived from England today - I guess it got out before air traffic was stopped. It is very clear - Beginner's Guide to Mosaic by Peter Massey and Alison Slater. Picking up tips already from their very clear step by step images, I have decided I will create the more detailed artistic elements of the mosaic "opus vermiculatum" using mosaic mesh, working flat on a table, and then transferring the tiles on the mesh to the wall-mounted plywood. I will then fill in the background in a more gridded fashion using the "opus quadratum" or the "opus tessalatum" technique of laying tiles. Time to look into buying mesh.

Day Five

I was happy to hear that the knock off mockup I made for my daughter Jean of a top she loves the fit of but finds the fabric too flimsy was a success. It fit just right and she says she can't believe I call it a mockup. (see photos)
There is not much mosaic progress today - we are waiting for deliveries and backpedaling. Amazon is having trouble processing our credit card for the purchase of the nippers and we don't know why. I just reentered the credit card information - which by the way was good enough for many other recent purchases including the mosaic book and we are nowhere near our credit limit.

There seems to be a dark cloud over more than northern Europe.

I even dreamt last night that I was in New York City getting on a train and a tall man grabbed my purse and manhandled my credit cards, stealing the very one that is now not working at Amazon.

Yesterday morning I went to the home of a custom clothing customer. She loves tiles and has many incorporated into her interior decor, including French and Spanish. The design theme of her home is "Monet". She even has a pond out back with a bridge just like the one at Giverny. I felt very much in my element.

I also had a chat with my good friend Sue who had been visiting mosaic supply sites online looking for mirror backed tiles. She didn't even know about my mosaic project or my blog. We had a good laugh over the coincidence.

Creatively I worked on touching up one of my illustration paintings (images show before and after) and tweeking until I was ready to keel over technical issues with the poster design for the Berkshire Bach Society spring concert: