06 November 2009

Ship Mosaic

Finished with the glass work on the ship mosaic night before last. 108 hours so far - not counting the research, trips to get glass, and sleepless, late-night planning...



Tonight: a grout color study - mixing the various colors of grout that I might want to use (and keeping precise records of the recipes for each). I'll make up a couple tablespoons of each color mixture and spread them on scrap wood. Once they've dried I can use them to determine which colors I want to use for this mosaic.

Tomorrow: grouting the mosaic - first the sections (if I decide to use more than one color grout - which is very likely) will be isolated.  I will decide which color I'm grouting first (I usually go from dark to light), mask off the not-to-be-grouted areas with some heavy duty tape and plastic left over from putting plastic on the windows. I'll be using a dry-grout method that I've had great success with lately. It's a great way to grout glass mosaics and it's what I now teach in my classes.

This is the part of the process that makes me anxious - what if, after all those hours of work on this piece, I choose poorly and the grout colors don't work well with the glass? I'm going to test several shades of light grays, blues and tans and some medium blues and tans. The blues and tans will be hand-mixed formulas.

Wish me luck.

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