Student Jude, with her lovely mosaic mirror, summerhouseart.com
Usually, when I offer my Fall/Winter classes, I’ve had to limit my available hours to weekday mornings. I’m happy to announce that due to some changes I’m able to offer more choices. So you can now book a weekly class either in the morning from 10am-12:30, or an afternoon from 1:30-4pm or an evening class from 6:30-9pm. Just call or email to see if the time and week day you’d like is available, and we’ll go from there.
The class would be 2.5 hours per week over 4 weeks. Lots of time, lots of one on one instruction and a chance to create a project of your own design, something unique to you. Have a look at my Mosaic Class page and also the FAQ page for all the details.
Student Jane, cleaning grout on her mosaic, summerhouseart.comStudent Irina cleaning grout for a lovely finished mirror
Another pot that hasn’t been seen on the blog before. The thing with pots is that you can’t see all the sides at once, so we thought, why not show it as a gif so it turns?
This one is set on a fancy little stand I found in Chinatown here in Victoria which just happened to fit it perfectly and add to it’s look. It’s made from a selection of thrift store dishes. It’s a small pot, just 5.5 inches by 7 inches or approximately 14 cm by 17.75cm.
A while ago I created a mosaic from broken dishes, in a few of my favourite colours and patterns, all the pieces were Triangles.
Now we are a couple who do NOT just sit around doing only things we already know how to do. Oh no! We sit around in front of youtube and watch tutorials on things like creating seamless patterns for fabric design. And eventually we’ll manage to make a lot of designs, because it’s kind of fun. Zazzle, which is a great Print on Demand company, happen to have fabric by the yard in Print on Demand.
So, after much work and learning, we created a seamless pattern based on the above mosaic. We are rather pleased with the result. We called it Triangle Treat. We’re offering it by the yard, in Combed Cotton, and you can also order Swatches and Fat Quarters of it for the Quilters.
Triangle Treat fabric, close up, Zazzle, Summerhouse Art
BTW, it’s really worth it to check out Zazzle and get on their email list because they are constantly having sales. Check out a little sample of what we have on Zazzle in our Zazzle shop page, where you can click directly to the shop itself.
Studies are like sketches or perhaps experiments. I quite like the idea of doing studies, just to see where an idea will lead, curious to see what it will look like when done.
Just working on small 6 inch by 6 inch pieces of wood as a base for the mosaic studies, I went through my many many containers of dish bits and put together a small set of colors and textures that appealed to me. The first piece was made using bits of dishes that I’d cut into only rectangular or squarish bits. The pieces aren’t exact or tidy rectangles or squares like you’d get with normal mosaics, but the uneven, variances that you get when cutting up dishes which I think adds to the surface interest.
I arranged them in an intuitive order, balancing the colors and textures as I went.
Then, looking at my work table, I realized I had quite a few triangular pieces scattered about and decided that, as my next study, I would use only triangular bits of the same dishes. An entirely different composition but still fun to look at.
Looking at them now, I’m quite enjoying them and seeing many possibilities as well. We’ve become interested in surface design in the last few years and Will and I have been having a bit of fun teaching ourselves how to make repeat patterns. And we’ve also been applying our work to all sorts of other products from prints to pillows on our various online Print on Demand shops like Society 6 and Red Bubble. Looking at these studies, I can see some fabric design ideas, prints and other possibilities. It’s a whole new avenue to explore. Watch this space to see what we make with these…..much more to come.
(BTW, if you’d like to make a comment, just click on the title. It’ll take you to comments….and we do appreciate comments )
I like to dabble in all sorts of things, like to shake up my thinking a bit. Feng Shui was one of those interests that I took up for a time and I even incorporated some of its ideas into my home here and there. For instance the far corner of the greenhouse, the “wealth corner”, is full of Jade plants, or money plants. There are other little touches throughout the house too. And I admit that keeping the Chi flowing is a good reason to tidy up. But for an old hippie like me, there are just too many rules to Feng Shui, so I just picked up a few that I liked.
When I found the Foo Dog or Lion at a flea market, I knew I just had to do another Oriental Shrine pique assiette mosaic and I wanted to incorporate a bit of Feng Shui too. I’d already done a small shrine incorporating a couple of Blue Willow porcelain saucers, some chopstick rests, a little Buddha and a stork figurine. Pique Assiette mosaics, by the way, are a type of mosaic quite different from the usual mosaic made with tesserae, because of the use of the dishes and ornaments.
I’d been trying to cut a round mirror when it just cracked on its own in this wonderful semi-moon shape. Well, something like that cannot be wasted! The shape of that mirror dictated the shape of the shrine and created the shoulders to put the little chopstick rests on. Everything just flowed together.
Where did I get almost all of these wonderful ingredients for the shrine? Well, here in Victoria, we have the most wonderful Chinatown ever. I love shopping in Chinatown, especially in a hidden little alley called Fan Tan Alley which is just too much fun to prowl.
The mystery entrance to Fan Tan Alley from Pandora Street
Character shops in the alley
The window of Dragon Song Music
Baskets in a Fan Tan shop window
Now, with the find of the Foo dog, again things that I needed just seemed to fall into my lap. The background was made from some really good, antique Blue Willow dishes, given to me by an antique dealer friend of Eric’s. They were chipped and perfect for breaking. And break they did, like butter! So easy to cut and shape.
More chopstick rests and another little Buddha were found on a trip to Chinatown. Any excuse to go there will do, after all. Other oriental saucers were found in Value Village and before I knew it, the piece was ready to start.
But this time I wanted to incorporate some Chi into the design. Chi is a flow of energy in Feng Shui . For that I wanted a water flow, so I created a little “golden river” for the fish to swim in, that led to the serene Buddha. The Foo Dog or Lion was at the gate to protect the Buddha and would keep the “Blue Willow garden” tranquil.
And so Feng Shui, with a nod to tranquility, Chi, and the garden became a design element in this little shrine.
