Thursday, July 30, 2009

I Have a Title: "Bad Hair Day"

"Bad Hair Day" seems like a good title. Look at all that stuff stuck in there! There is even a squirrel. If that's not a bad hair day, I don't know what is...

I'm not done with the hair (there is more above the pic). Next session.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

New Mosaic

I thought I'd document the making of a mosaic here from start to finish. I think it's hard to explain, since each one is processed so differently from the next, but at least this tells the story of this particular mosaic.

I don't have a title for this one yet. I was sketching in my sketchbook and I came up with a face I liked, starting with the eyes. The one on the left was one of those continuous line drawings that are fun to do and force you to draw differently than you normally draw. I liked something about the eyes, so I drew an eye without the continuous line, still liked the eye, and so drew a face.
So I grabbed a scrap of wedi board. This one was very vertical or very horizontal. I turned it vertically and drew the face near the bottom and lots of hair piled on top. I changed the face a bit and had to do some erasing, but I like how it looks now.
So far I've put in about half an hour. The next thing I did was put in the wedi washers near the top. This hanging system allows the mosaic to be hung on a nail. This took about 10 minutes.

I started gluing the glass down for the eyes. When I'm working on a face, I always start with the eyes. If you have great, expressive eyes, it hardly matters what else you do with the face! I always put a glint of light (white glass) in each eye to give it life. Then the pupil, iris, whites, and surround. Next I worked on the lips, then the nose, cheeks, forehead, and chin.

I didn't plan on making the skin all colorful, it just happened. I was actually planning on doing it all in one color, but suddenly felt like doing this. I wasn't totally sure about the cheeks being the larger pieces, but it's kind of grotesque and clownish, which seems to work for this one. Very painted on. She's got a beauty spot, too, of course. I'm happy with it overall, because it's a bit more fun with all the color. I don't want this to be stuffy at all, rather I want it to have a sense of humor. I don't know what will happen with the hair yet, but it might be fun to have all sorts of crazy things in there.

Finally I did the collar, the blouse and the earrings. The mosaicking has taken me about 7 hours so far.
She ends up looking older and less glamourous than the drawing, which I'm really happy about!


Wednesday, July 22, 2009

What to Do With All Those Saved Fortunes?

I've been saving fortunes from cookies forever. Un-fortune-ately, many are stained from the cookie oils, but I still have a pretty good selection. A few years ago, I used some of these in a painting, but this is the first time I've used them in mosaics. I love how they inspire ideas! This is one for the show at 360 I mentioned below.
I'm also using millefiori for the first time with my most recent mosaics. They add a little flair and they are a bit whimsical, which fits for this theme. I put some in the kiln and melted them to see how that would look. I used the melted ones below in another fortune piece.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Angel Ornaments

I'm working on some ornaments for the Gallery 360 show. For these I collaged lots of Victorian images in Photoshop. I started with some girls, added wings to each, and decorated the surrounding area with other images of birds, flowers, text, etc... Then I mosaiced each one with clear glass in a pendant tray.


Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Gallery 360 show next Nov/Dec

I am working on a show for Gallery 360 that will be in Nov/Dec. It's a five foot show, so very small. The theme is Victorian Angels. I'm working on large pieces, like the one above (Magical Life) down to small ornaments.

People are always asking how I do the faces, so here it is: I photocopy clip art, paint it, and glue clear glass over the top. I did the bird a little differently - I screen printed the bird onto clear glass, then glued that over crumpled tinfoil. The wings are printed scrapbooking paper covered by clear tempered glass. The rest is all stained glass, surrounded by a border of gold mirrored glass.