Sunday 10 August 2014

Mosaic project

Sunday July 20th 2014!


A slight delay has occurred...........
I found myself distracted from my card making and lured into the world of mosaics.
Now bearing in mind I have never made a mosaic before this was a major challenge.
I find the Internet invaluable and utube, in particular, as a teaching resource. I scoured both and read some books and then as I'm a hands on kind of person just decided to get going.
We have a small pond in the garden, it has three seats incorporated into the design and it has all been painted with an outdoor paint. The seats are constantly wet from the fountain and I was faced with peeling paint and having to try and keep it looking nice which had become a constant job.
I decided mosaic seats might be a more permanent solution. So set about making some!
The pond

I found some designs I liked on the web and then adapted them.


Each seat is subtly different. I thought the fish theme was probably suitable.


I found some mosaic tile sources on the web and opted for Murano glass tiles. They are good quality so cut well with tile nippers and have interesting colours through them. They come in 2cm squares.


I played about with the design as it was all new to me and then decided just to 'go for it'.
because the seats are going to be in a wet environment the suggestions was that I should use something called 'Hardie Backer Board' which is a cement based product, quite thin and has to be scored and snapped, this being harder than it sounds. Topps Tiles were incredibly helpful and sell this product. They also suggested a cement based glue which needs to be applied in small areas as it sets very quickly.


This is called the direct method where you put glue down and then fix the small pieces in place. I learnt half way through, there is a better way to do this, called the indirect method but I had already got going by this stage. The result is that there is not quite enough of a gap between the pieces and they are not entirely smooth....



first seat completed.



2nd seat completed

3rd seat under construction


close up


and completed


The seats once completed had to be grouted. I chose a dark grout (black) as I felt it would help to bring the design together. With hind sight I needed a bigger gap between tiles and by the time I got to the third seat I was using more of a square tile but you live and learn and I was pleased with how it had turned out. The whole project took a month and was very therapeutic. I m planning the next!....


here are all three grouted.



and finished!

before


and after!


See you soon, hopefully with cards next time.....








3 comments:

  1. I was interested to read your first attempts at outdoor mosaic as I would like to do this. I live near the Yorkshire Sculpture Park at Bretton which has a giant Buddha covered in various colours/types of mosaic which looks fantastic. Like you I don't really know where to start, or what materials to use. Anyway, lovely fish panels and well done.

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  2. It's fantastic Hilary. It looks like you've been doing it for years! You must be so pleased with it. x

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  3. Hi Lynne
    Yes we are it's made a big difference and is much easier to maintain, need to see how it copes over the winter!

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