What an excellent day today- My free mosaic demo went great. A lot of fabulous people came to learn about the mosaic process, sign up for my May workshop, and give me support. A sincere thanks for coming and I'll see you in a couple of weeks at Meiklem Kilnworks for a hands on garden mosaic class. The class is the last 3 Thursdays in May. Everyone will mosaic their very own garden bowl. Gotta love original artwork. Can't wait!
Big Thanks also go out to Hart's Greenhouse & Florist for hosting such a fun day.
Free Mosaic Demo
Anyone in the area this Saturday, please stop by between 11 am and 1 pm on
April 26th I'll be at
Hart's Greenhouse
43 Clinton Ave.
Norwich, CT 06360
(860) 886- ROSE
I'll be in action working on an original garden bowl design. We'll see how much room I have, but I also plan on grouting, cleaning and polishing the garden bowl. I'll be getting my hands dirty as usual. I plan on having as much fun as possible without a glass of wine.
Grout time
I've actually been a way from the computer a bit. I've had my hands in concrete, glass shards and grout. That would really gum up my keyboard if I were to type. I'm getting ready for my mosaic demonstration at the greenhouse in a week and a half. I just grouted the 2 garden bowls I had covered with glass and pottery pieces. I'm happy with the charcoal black colored grout against the vibrant stained glass in the Disco Road Garden Bowl.
The Circles Garden Bowl looks softer with grayish blue grout. The immediate center is lost a little, but I really like how the outer circles fade into the edge. It reminds me of a geode- a plain looking rock on the outside, then crack it open to find a colorful treasure. I'd like to experiment with more color combinations. The average size of these garden bowls have been approximately 15 inches to 18 inches across. I hope to make some larger bowls as well. This will give more surface area to actually create a pictorial design. The larger bowls will definitely be heavier, but they would be perfect for a birdbath perched on a rock in a garden.
My treasury
I got to pick a treasury today of all the beautiful artists I've recently seen. I've been exploring other's blogs and decided to send out some props to my fellow Etsy artists. I am amazed everyday by their talent.
EJ at Beach 2007
I was checking out my fabulous friends at FLickr, and noticed a few people mentioning words like LOMO and DUMPR. Well, I wasn't at all familiar with these terms, so I set out to explore a bit further. I immediately found the coolest website, Dumpr.net, and 2 hours and 50 photographs later, I've found another addiction to chip away at my "free" time. What a blast! So, here is the Lomo effect on a picture of my son taken this past summer. "Lomography deals with photoshooting using LOMO cameras. These are russian camera makes who make a color-intensive and blurry lenses. Nowadays, lomography is art and you are welcome to participate!" as stated in their website. It's really cool... Yeah- Dumpr.net, everybody's doing it....
Branches & Blossoms
A new batch of my hand painted fused glass pendants just came out of the kiln. I am excited to share them. I've been looking through all those home decor catalogs I've been receiving in the mail. Scouring through the pages of all the gorgeous things I don't have. Wondering...who really gets to live in those houses with all those things... maybe someday. Ya know what? I can create beautiful things myself. So why not rejoice in the trendy spring colors that they call Melon and Crisp Blue...
I have focused on spring flowering branches. White blooms dancing along stark brown, twisting branches. I hand painted the flowers on melon green, crisp blue and the palest pink glass I could find. * smile to myself * Let me know what you think.
Leaf Castings
I'm really hoping to be able to work with concrete more this spring. I've really enjoyed making leaf casting over the past 2 years. I'm from New England, and have only a window of time to use leaves in our area. Not too many tropical plants with giant leaves grow in my yard. I try to grab all my large leaves before the bugs eat their way through them, making their own designs that never seem to coincide with what I'm trying to create. I've found that rhubarb is one of my favorites. It's got decent surface space and raised and textured veins that show up great in the cement. Hosta leaves, cabbage, arrowleaf ferns all are fun too. I prefer a more dimensional look to my castings, but you can also try banana leaves and large elephant ears. I am also experimenting with coloring the leaves. I've tinted the cement, and I've also painted the leaves after they've cured. Some of the most brilliant leaves I've seen in art books are colored with pure pigments. I haven't tried that just yet. It's on the list. And that list is long...
The next batch of leaves I cast, I'll try to take some photos of the actual process. It's a down and dirty one indeed. I always seem to gravitate toward the messy projects.
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