I Dream Mosaic

Recently finished (it took several years in between other projects!) and installed in my garden.
Individual components sculpted from roof insulation (yes, it’s an experiment), acrylic balls and a ceramic head, and threaded on to a length of rebar hammered into the ground.

‘Dancer in Diamonds’, a partner piece to Dancer in Turquoise which I created some years ago now (sometimes inspiration is a long time a-coming!).
This piece includes vintage diamanté diamonds’, paua shell, polished semi precious gemstones and beads carved from volcanic rock.

Panel made for my new shower stall: stained glass in green and nearly green, gold mirror with an interesting ‘foxed’ finish, coloured dots and sundry tesserae made by melting glass rods and shards of green wine bottles respectively.
I also made a matching plant pot!
Bathroom furniture by the wood wizards at Fallen and Felled - thanks guys!

Newly installed: a Swallowtail butterfly mosaic (wing colours chosen by the customer).
Unusually - in fact, for the first time ever - I’ve not only used two colours of grout, I’ve also used black! which I usually regard as way too overpowering.
However, Swallowtails have prominent black veining on their wings, and creating those in black glass would have been just too clunky (the whole piece is about 35cms diameter), so I opted for black grout.
I did the background in my usual dark grey grout - visually neutral, so as not to attract attention.
I’m pleased with the result.

I’ve been really motoring on the mosaics recently. Here are some recent commissions … If I could caption each one I would!
The first and second are worked in stained glass on a cementitious tile backer board: one is a house name and one is intended for display in the customer’s garden.
The third is a Green Man - yes, I did a very similar mosaic for myself a couple of years ago. I was commissioned to recreate it, and it will shortly be winging its way to Spain - which is why it’s ungrouted. The new owner has had a number of my mosaics previously, and is well acquainted with the process of installing and grouting in situ. This piece was created on mesh, which is how I’ve been able to make such an interesting.y irregular shape.

Matsumoto Hoji (c. 1785) used brush and ink to create very well-known pictures of frogs.
I particularly like the Sad Frog, and he was my inspiration for this low table for the garden. But I’ve given him a glass of something bubbly and a little smile as well.
Cast iron legs from a traditional English pub stool, concrete table top cast in a giant trug (hence the curved edge).
Mainly stained glass, with a row of ceramic tile,10mm mirror tiles and finally 10mm recycled glass tiles around the border. Eyes are scrap glass fused into blobs in my microwave glass kiln, halved, and the middle ground out just enough to take a glass bead.
Adhered with my usual cementitious mosaic adhesive and grouted in Mapei’s Ultracolour Plus in Anthracite.

Jack-in-the-Green, newly installed.

This must be my quickest mosaic ever! After making the substrate and the numerals it took only a couple of hours.
I decided I needed another house number - nobody ever spots the one on my gatepost. Made on a cement-based tile backer board, it’s screwed to the house wall, with the screw heads concealed behind the mosaic.
The mosaic is pique assiette for the most part, plus numerals made from a blue glass bottle which I melted down in my microwave kiln (hence the joins: these things aren’t very big).
An inner border of square mirror tiles catches the light - and attention of passers-by.

Just finished: a 4 x 4 foot Buddha, based on a stock image supplied by the client. The brief was to create something colourful but not gaudy, and to follow the image fairly closely.
The Buddha is rendered in a ‘crazy paving’ mosaic style, while the background - featuring very similar colours in places - is rendered in strips varying from smooth to heavily textured glass, glass blobs and some manufactured tesserae.
I have encouraged the client - who plans to install himself - to grout in dark grey, which will really make the colours pop.

Octopus waiting to be collected and taken to his new home. I understand he’ll be installed onto a brick wall before being grouted in situ.

Recently completed: about 65cms across and ungrouted, since he is due to fly to Spain (eventually!) where I understand he will be installed on the wall of a house. A mix of manufactured tesserae and stained glass.

Just finished: a very battered butler’s sink upcycled with pique assiette mosaic. Most of the ceramics used are from the Far East: of the Japanese pieces many were brought back from trips there. It’s amazing where you can find pottery shards in Japan: sources to date include unwanted pieces left out for the bin men, a box of broken pots in a potter’s display, and the bed of a stream in the pottery town of Aritsa. Mad English tourist? don’t know what you mean.