Garden Sphere done!

Finished my garden sphere today, project #7. Have I mentioned Tami Zweig and her amazing classes? We're so lucky to have her in Santa Barbara, and she is planning on expanding to more workshops and classes. Check her out on her class webpage or Facebook! This sphere was a little more complicated than some of my projects - we meshed and cemented a basketball for the base, and then covering a curved surface with flat tiles can be tricky. The mirror was challenging to cut, and at a different height than the tiles. Now I want to create a garden to put this in! And then walls and stepping stones and pots and.... I was tickled to discover that Ilona Fried had visited my site (and commented) when she heard about a post about me trying out her methods. The internet is an amazing place!!..

Sphere-ungrouted

I finished tiling my sphere, started in Tami's mosaic class, now deciding on grout color. I think grey, but not sure about lighter or darker.

Circular mirror - Fade to Black

Circular mirror made from extra pieces. I ran out of the green mid-way, so tried to make it look like I'd planned to have the black take over... Not sure if it worked.

Mirror Frame Geometric Experiment

I purchased a mosaic kit as a kid project, but hadn't used it with the kid. I didn't particularly like the glass tiles (adamenti), so rather than tossing it, I decided to use it as an experiment with technique, and make it a learning experiment. I've admired the geometric designs of mosaicist Ilona Fried, and wanted to try my hand at that. Much harder than it looks! I'm not thrilled with the piece since I didn't like the tile to begin with, and didn't quite succeed at creating the look I wanted, so I have no idea what I'll do with it. But I did learn a few things, and did better with the grout than I had in the past.

Finished Blueglass Guitar photos

Grouting is done! - I chose a white with some brown for the neck and brown swooshes on the body, and white with some blue for the body, it all looks similar, so perhaps I didn't use enough blue, and the whole thing looks pretty white - but it's fine and I'm happy with it and ready to move on to another project! This is one heavy axe!

Finished Blueglass Guitar photos II

Blueglass Guitar collage

All Over But the Grout

What color to grout? Gray? LIght or Dark? Brown? light or dark? hmmm.

Neck of fire finished

One hot guitar, never to be played again. I finished the neck today, and now move on to the sides. The first two pics are of just the red glass on the neck. The last two are with the brown added on.

Front surface done!

Decided to go with a red swash on the lower left for some pizazz. The strawberry is a family thing, as is the keyboard. The rest is just divine inspiration... :-) Now on to the neck and sides. I doubt I'll do the back. And what grout color? Always a hard decision. I'm open to suggestions!

Moving right along.

Want to do something different on the bottom left side, perhaps in red. We'll see what emerges.

Next step

Finally was able to figure out how to do the next stage. I cut out several sorts of brown "swooshes" for the lower left side, and nothing looked right to me. I sketched some ideas, I set something up at night and looked again in the morning.... very frustrating. Then something just come to me, and it felt good enough to cut and glue. Yay!

Blueglass Guitar Project

My latest, and fourth, mosaic project is progressing slowly but I'm having fun. I've learned some skills and tricks since my first projects, and I'm excited about this one.

We've had this old 12-string guitar laying around the house for years, and after seeing some mosaic'd ones around, I was excited about the possibilities. I wanted to continue using stained glass, which I learned about on project #3, especially since a ceramic guitar sounded way too heavy to hang on a wall.

I have so far been unable to create a design in advance. I had some basic line ideas, drew out some lines, collected some colors that drew me in, and set to work. I immediately felt stymied by not having a grinder, so sunk a bit more money into this hobby and bought one, which has allowed me to do things with a little more finesse. I decided not to grind everything, as that was taking way too much time, but just the pieces that needed it in the foreground, and here and there when my "nipping" skills are lacking.

Here are some photos from the past 3 weeks of work, beginning March 21, and ending April 11.