29 June 2010

Sheba Mosaic

I have finished the Sheba mosaic. I decided not to trim the edge tesserae, but instead to let them hang out over the frame.


Next I have a house number mosaic to do. Once that's done I'm starting the large three dimensional piece.


28 June 2010

Swarm Captured


Click the photo and take a look at this slideshow of Abelisto & me capturing a swarm (with the help of Joyce and Paul).

What a rush!


23 June 2010

It's time to get back to the mosaics

I've not been doing much work on the mosaic this month. I needed to redesign my website montagaelmay.com  and apply the design elements to this blog. It still surprises me some when I come back to the blog and see the new design - I sort of forget that I did the update already.

I also just now - like 10 minutes ago - uploaded the newly redesigned Winona Arts Center website - winonaarts.org. Hopefully I've found all the issues with it. I'm using JotForms for the forms as an experiment. I've beefed up the member-artist pages and added a gallery feature. Hopefully more member who are artists will take advantage of this benefit.

Now I get to do the proofreading and the fretting... I know there's got to be some overlooked placeholder text in there somewhere... or some links on some child page. 




02 June 2010

Sheba Mosaic Progress

I haven't posted about the mosaic in a while. Earlier this week I finished the face and the hair, trimmed off the excess mesh and glued the work onto a Wedi board.

I've been testing colors for the clothing and the background.

When I test colors I lay out the tesserae in a roughed-in manner. I try out combinations and andamento (flow of the tesserae) in a very loose way which helps me visualize how it might look. This was my final test for the garment colors for the Sheba mosaic:
 

You can see a roughed-in arrangement of color and andamento. Once I find an arrangement that seems to work for me I let it sit for a few days - checking it now and then to see if it still appeals to me. If it does, I start working with the colors and layout and then see what I think (I have been known to pull out large sections of a mosaic if I'm not perfectly satisfied with it...)

Tonight I started on the garment section of the mosaic. Didn't get too far - tonight was Skype night with the Las Vegas contingent of the family. Promised Aluna that I'd post a photo of tonight's progress on the mosaic after we disconnected, so here it is:


Only the blue/green tesserae along the right shoulder (left side of the mosaic as you are looking at it) are glued down so far. Hopefully I'll get more done tomorrow night. I don't think I have any mosaic students coming to the open studio so I'll be able to work on this instead of teaching.