There's a brown bear in Loveland!

After working on the 'Magpie's Mirror' I created two more mirrors that were commission pieces and then started to consider my next work of art. I wanted to make something for my good friend Cabby who lives in Loveland. We rarely have the chance to actually get together but our love of art and mosaics, and email, means we are able to maintain our friendship. Cabby and her husband have a lovely ranch house (that's a bungalow to my UK friends) it's very cosy and warm and has a kind of cabin feel to the decor. I wanted to make a gift for Cabby and decided a brown bear would be perfect. I already had brown beads and beautiful shiny green bugle beads for the back ground. Instead of working on a wooden substrate I decided to place the mosaic directly onto the glass front of a small picture frame. I taped a drawing of a brown bear to the underside of the glass and set to work.

The body of the bear came together very quickly, which I was grateful for as working with such small beads was very tiring on the eyes! While making the bear I realised the most important parts of the mosaic would be his eyes, nose and ears. The nose and eye went in very quickly and I could see the bear really coming to life, but his ears posed SO many problems for me! I was using just one rectangular bead for each ear and trying to get them in the correct position was actually pretty tricky. Just a fraction of an inch too far back looked weird, too far forward they looked like strange bumps on the bear's head!

I completed the rest of the mosaic, adding in grass and tiny red flowers to the background before I added the ears. I placed them this way, then that way, and finally got them in the right position and glued them into place. Once everything was dried I cleaned the glass and placed it back in the frame. I was very happy with the bear, he looked so friendly and the beads worked so well for his shape. The colors sparkled and shone, it was incredibly satisfying to have him finished!

So Many Colors!

Now that I had completed an entire mosaic using only beads I was really getting excited to use more color and 'dazzle' in my work, which I had not previously done. Visiting the store to look at beads made me want to create something full of color and vibrancy. I looked at beads and found many I loved but I kept going back to the flat backed rhinestones. There were so many different sizes, shapes and colors and I had to make something with them. I bought lots and lots of them, brought them home, sorted them and began to work. I used a square mirror and painted the base with a transparent glitter paint and while I waited for it to dry gathered everything I could find that was colorful, glittery and different.

I had no pattern in mind, no design in my head, so I just began to glue things down. It was incredibly freeing, after creating mosaics to a particular design and using set colors to be just working in a random fashion as I was. I was so excited by the colors and the way things came together. I added in glass nuggets and large chunky acrylic beads, shiny star shaped rhinestone, small circles of mirror and acrylic cabochons.

I allowed a small trail of gems to cascade from the frame of the mirror and onto the glass itself, I felt it completed the entire piece. I was SO excited with this mosaic, it was the first completely random piece I had ever completed, and I had certainly not used so many colors before in my life. But I loved it. I quickly named it 'The Magpie's Mirror' before it went off to be included in the 'Mirror, Mirror' exhibition. After just two days I received emails asking how I had created the mirror, and if I held classes! Of course I did! Those were the first classes I ever held and it was exciting to know that other people loved my mirror as much as I did!

My First Beaded Mosaic

Once I decided I wanted to create mosaics using just beads I was a little overwhelmed. Not because I didn't like the idea or didn't think I could do it, but because of the choice and selection of beads that are now available. In addition, this was not going to be like making a mosaic using stained glass or tile. I couldn't cut the beads, so I had to work very carefully to ensure the beads would fit in the right place, of course I discovered this by making one huge mistake!I

In the 80's I took a couple of vacations in Greece and loved the white churches with cobalt blue domes. The way they shone in the bright sunlight was so beautiful and that vision has always been with me. I decided I would like to make a mosaic of the sea, the distant hills and place a domed church in the foreground. I looked at all my photos and came up with a design I created from several pictures. I selected my substrate and using three colors of blue sponged the entire base and then transferred the drawing onto it.

Then I ran out to buy my beads. I found some really lovely rectangular beads in shades of brown, gold, green and blue that I thought would work perfectly for the land mass. I also selected some cobalt blue beads for the domed roof and left it at that. I wasn't sure which bead I would use for the white buildings or patio and thought I could deal with that later, and that's where everything started to go wrong, although I just didn't know it yet!

I was so keen to start, the beads I had chosen for the hills were perfect and that part of the mosaic was completed very quickly and I was incredibly pleased with how it looked. In mosaics the artist is always trying to convey movement and texture and these beads did just that! The next thing I completed was the dome, the blue beads I selected were perfect! I loved my Greek picture. And that's when I hit a BIG snag. I went out looking for beads for the building and the patio area and couldn't find anything I thought would work properly. Some beads were just too big and I hadn't planned for that, the smaller ones worked, but the space I had left for them was too small, so I couldn't fit them in. I debated trying to cut the beads, but that didn't work. I went out and bought small pearls, and started to glue them in place, but hated the way it looked. I tried adding white and pearl small rectangular beads to part of the church and it looked terrible. I couldn't figure out how to fix the mosaic without removing everything and starting over.

The mosaic sat on my table for many months gathering dust! I occasionally looked at it, looked at beads in the stores and online but found nothing that resolved my problem. I was learning the hard way that when you work with beads, you have to select the beads first, then put the drawing on your board into a position where all the beads will fit!

Eventually I decided I had to remove the domed roof and the walls of the church I had already covered with beads. I sat at my work table with a tiny hammer and chisel chipping everything but the land off. (At least I knew the glue worked well!) Then I cleaned all the excess glue off the board, repainted the base and started over. I bought white mother of pearl square beads for the walls of my church and measured carefully to ensure that they would fit exactly into the space. I added some land into the foreground and after finding some lovely blue/green stone chips added in a couple of trees. The picture truly was a labor of love, I learned a lot about making beaded mosaics and also how to correct the errors I made. The finished work is really nice, and I am very happy with it.

How I Got From There to Here! Part V - This Is It!

For a long time, I didn't want to stop using the artificial stone. It was so easy to cut and work with, I didn't have to be worried about my twins playing with it or finding pieces on the floor, but the colors weren't as bright or vibrant as I wanted. I can't quite believe it now, but I actually considered painting each and every stone before use so that I would have the exact colors I wanted. Fortunately, I came to my senses in time!

My work table (aka the kitchen island) remained empty of mosaics for some time while I considered what to do next. The need and drive to create was still there, but I wasn't finding the medium that meant the most to me. I was president of a group of mosaic artists who coordinated and set up exhibitions of our work throughout Colorado and we generally tried to come up with a theme for the displays. It was incredible to see how many ways the artists in our group could interpret each theme. For one exhibition we decided that each of us would use the same basic mirror as our base, the title for the exhibition was 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall' and we could decorate the mirrors any way we chose.

I immediately wanted to do something different, I wanted to have words and phrases running across the frame of the mirror, but wasn't quite sure how I was going to achieve that. I started researching positive phrases online, things like 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' and 'Monday's child is fair of face'. I loved the idea so began to work out how to get those phrases onto the mirror. Glass wasn't the answer, there was no way I could cut all those letters and make them small enough. The stone wouldn't work either, it wasn't bright enough! I debated making my own clay tiles and inscribing the letters into them, but that would take far too long, plus I had never used polymer clay before and I had a deadline to make!

One Sunday, I left the twins with my husband and went out shopping. Wandering around my local craft store I discovered that I could buy letter beads, I didn't know that! I found some beads that were just like scrabble tiles and I was ecstatic! I found letter beads in bright day-glo colors, cubes and rounds, I found pastels and black on white. It was like being in a sweet shop (that would be a candy store for all my American friends!) I loved them all. I spent a small fortune on beads and hurried home with my 'loot'!

The mirror took a little while to work out. First I had to spell out all the phrases I planned to use, and invariably found I didn't have enough vowels in my stash so would have to run out to the craft store again! I also needed to work out the positioning very carefully, as I couldn't cut the beads to fit, but eventually things came together. I also added small glass tiles to my work and filled any odd gaps with seed beads. I was very pleased with the end result and loved the texture of the beads, their placement with the glass tile and the color and light on the entire mirror.

I had found my niche! Beads were what I wanted to use. They provided me with all the color and light reflecting properties of glass but without sharp pieces or grouting. I was well aware I was going to spend a lot of money, but I was totally happy with the new medium I had found!

How I Got From There to Here! Part IV - Is This The Answer?

At this point my life took another turn, I was expecting twin boys so my workroom was about to become the nursery. I carefully packed all my things away and stowed the boxes down in our overcrowded, unfinished basement. I mentally said goodbye to mosaics as I knew I was not going to have any time to myself for the foreseeable future. The walls of my workroom were painted blue, the cribs went in and I became a full time mum!

I think the boys were about 1 year old when I began to get 'itchy'! I really needed to make something, I needed to be creative and I had to mosaic! I made a small space in the dining room set up my table and then took a step back. I didn't want to use glass around the boys, I still disliked grout but I wanted to work, I wanted to create, so I started an online search and that's how I found a product called Stone by Stone. It's an artificial stone (seems like pumice to me) that can be cut with scissors! I bought several tubs, both the colored and the off white, took them home and wondered what the heck I was going to make with it all. I liked the look of the tiles, but the color palette was somewhat restricted so really had to consider what I was going to make next!

For some time I had been considering making a map of the world, my initial thoughts were to cover a small globe in seed beads but I had really cast that idea aside once the boys were born, plus they wrecked the only globe I had by rolling it around the floor! I looked online for inspiration and eventually decided I wanted to make a map - but something slightly different. I bought a large piece of MDF, about 3' x 2' and decided to paint it copper. I bought three shades of copper and gold paint and then applied them to the MDF with sponges. Once I was happy with the result. I traced my pattern onto the board and using the artificial stone began to create my 'Two Hemispheres' map. I loved making that mosaic, I worked when the boys napped and it took many months to complete but the end result was perfect! I was incredibly happy with it and I loved working with the stone, plus I really liked that the entire substrate was not covered with tile. I enjoyed the mix of paint and stone, I felt this work epitomised how I was working, that the mosaics I was creating were a modern twist on an old medium. My mind was working overtime considering all the possibilities!

The next thing I made with the artificial stone was a leaf, I called it my 'Fossilised Leaf' and I loved that too, but at the end of the day I was finding the colors of the stone were just not bright enough for some of the things I wanted to make! My search continued!

How I Got From There to Here! Part III - Oh! The Colors of Glass!

It wasn't long before I was haunting the local glass shops, drooling over pieces of glass that I really couldn't afford and had no idea what to do with! I ordered a variety of glass online, along with a cutting mat and a glass cutter. I stacked the glass away, set up my cutting mat and added oil to the glass cutter. Once everything was set up in my workroom, I closed the door and walked away! Do you see a pattern here?

I was too scared to handle the glass, I was worried I would cut myself (which I did, many times) and had no idea if I would ever be able to cut out the shapes I needed for my work. Eventually, after reading up on cutting glass, I went back into my workroom and gave it a try. I cut a 12" square of blue glass into strips and then each strip into squares. In theory each square should have been the same size as the next, and they weren't; but it didn't matter to me as I was on my way!

I was unstoppable, I loved creating art and making something so rich in color and texture. I received several commissions and enjoyed the process of designing a piece, selecting the colors with my client and seeing the entire mosaic come together. It was exciting, satisfying and frustrating all at the same time.

But throughout my mosaic journey there was one thing I really didn't like about creating mosaics, and that was grouting. I disliked the actual process, mixing up the grout and being careful not to breath in the dust. I disliked the clean up, working out how to get rid of excess grout because you cannot just wash it away down the sink! And to top it all, I often disliked how the finished piece looked once the grout was applied.

Which made me start to look for alternatives to glass.

How I Got From There to Here! Part II- My Adventure into Glass Tiles

Once I had made the tiled table I decided to try using vitreous glass tile. All the mosaics books included tile in their work, I had to have some if I was going to be a 'proper' mosaic artist. But I couldn't find any in my local stores, so I went online and started searching! What would we do without the web?

I ordered a box of assorted color vitreous tile, plus some tile nippers and a better glue than the one I had previously used. When everything arrived I was somewhat dismayed to find the tiles adhered to brown paper in sheets! I tried just pulling the tiles off, with little success and eventually realised I had to soak them in warm water to remove the paper. I did that, then dried them all carefully, sorted them into colors, put each color into storage boxes and stowed them away in my workroom. After that I just closed the door and left! I had NO idea how to use the tile, what I was going to make with them or how to cut them into the shapes I wanted.

Eventually I went back, opened the door and started cutting the tiles into smaller pieces. I made a lot of bad mosaics with the vitreous tile. The surfaces were uneven and the shapes were not quite right but I enjoyed myself immensely and actually began to learn a lot about making mosaics. I actually produced some quite nice coasters using the tiles whole, they were quick and easy, and if they didn't soak up drips from the cup or glass, who cared? I certainly didn't! I was an artist and being creative was what it was all about!