Helen – Page 9 – Summerhouse Art

The Story of the Little Green Night Table

Posted on August 12, 2014May 23, 2025 by Helen

Almost everything creative that we do has some connection to recycling. My mosaics are made from recycled or as Will likes to say “upcycled” dishes and ornaments.

Will uses a lot of collage in his work using all sorts of found ephemera from old photos to just bits and pieces. We live this great life of searching for good used “stuff” to re-use, for our art, for our home and almost everything else. And now we are doing something with furniture. Such was the case with this little night table, found ages ago, waiting for an idea, a vision, of what it was to become.

I happened to say to Will, sort of offhandedly actually, “Why don’t you paint something on the front?” and walked away.

When I came back this is the abstract that he’d painted. We both loved it and then I sort of picked up the colors and finished it off.

It’s a little different, with a more contemporary feel. I like the fact that the inside of the drawer is this lovely bright orange. The painting is done in such a way that it’ll gradually age and get that shabby artsy look.

This little table got us excited about doing lots more…. and somehow we started to find more and more bits and pieces of old furniture to work on. We’ve actually been stockpiling it I’m afraid to say. And as we can get to each piece, we’ve been having some creative fun renewing them.

Revisiting the Mosaic in Our Old Kitchen

Posted on August 3, 2014May 23, 2025 by Helen

We recently went on a short trip back to Calgary for a big family get together and while we were there, we did what no one should do. We drove by the old house.

Well, you know you shouldn’t do it, you know that the house will not be the same lovely house you worked on for years. You know, from past experience, that the person who bought it, will not take care of it like you did. And you know what? They really didn’t. It looked wrecked.

Which left me wondering about the kitchen and the mosaic backsplash we made there. Was it still up? What it destroyed by someone who didn’t appreciate the work I put into it? Well better not to know eh?

But it made me find the old photos of the backsplash. Taken back in the pre-digital camera days. Should have taken so many more photos, but in those days you worried about wasting film. How I love digital now!

The backsplash was made in situ, over a long hot Calgary summer. Something I’d never do now. Having to take everything out of the way to cook a few times a day really interrupts the flow of work.

No, now I’d make it in the studio and transfer it into place, glued down on board and screwed onto the wall and then grouted. But I love this mosaic still. If we’d stayed I doubt I would have tired of it.

The design itself was one of those ideas that just strikes you and you must do it. A “river” of blue tile flowing thru an abstract landscape. The tiles were sometimes bits of accidentally broken dishes from the set we used every day so it was what is called a Pique assiette mosaic. The kids never had to worry about breaking a dish, they knew mom would eventually use it in a mosaic. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Oh well, we don’t have that house anymore, which, by the way, had a wonderful studio we built just for us too, now made into another suite by the new owners. And we don’t have the lovely kitchen but we have the photos and the memories. And I’m still very pleased with the design of my very first mosaic back splash.

Another Student Taking Mosaic in Her Own Direction

Posted on July 18, 2014May 23, 2025 by Helen

I never really know where my mosaic classes might take a student. Some only try the medium out on a one time basis, mosaics being one more thing in a series of hobby classes they “taste test”. Some take off with doing more of the Pique Assiette type of mosaics I teach, like Murray Goode, who was featured recently. And some use the class as a jumping off point to other forms of mosaic. Such was the case with a student I had a few years ago, Anne Hauser.

I always try to encourage every student to work on projects of their own design. My classes feature a shopping class where we look for dishes to break and use since that is my focus in mosaics. But the method of mosaic lends itself to other types of tesserae, like glass. It’s always interesting to hear from my former students and see where they have taken the original classes.

Anne did stay with dishes at first, as shown in this very creative composition she made of a broken teapot. The teapot had been a favourite of a friend and Anne recreated it in a mosaic for her after it had broken. I liked not only the sentiment but the composition was unique too. The pot was the only mosaic on the surface, not surrounded by mosaic in the background. Quite novel.

Anne says she hardly ever works with dishes anymore and has switched to using glass now. She created a music themed piece for her husband as a gift where there is a bit of transition to glass. The sax is from a plate and she added gold sprinkles to the grout as it set. The rest of the piece is from glass.

She’s gone on from there to create collages of a sort with mosaic surrounding photos under glass and a mirror frame with glass and rhinestones! As she said recently in an email “….I seem to have gravitated to glass and tiles along with odds and ends that I find. I’m working on one now that incorporates a pewter sailboat, beach sand and pebbles, some tree leaves I made from putty, and glass. Not sure how it’s all going to turn out, but interesting”

I really like that she is having fun and sounds quite fearless, really, with not being sure how the piece will look in the end, but being ok with that. That’s real creativity.

A Little Mosaic Bunny Box

Posted on July 9, 2014May 23, 2025 by Helen

Or how this box became

This!

Sometimes, when you teach mosaics, you get an idea from a student. And one of my students this spring, decided to do a mosaic box. A Tea Box complete with little teapot ornaments on top. It’s going to look great. Now, I’ve made shrines, pots, trays and wall pieces but, for some odd reason, I’ve never done a box in mosaic and now seemed a good time to try. For two reasons, one, to try it out and see what problems it would present and two, suddenly I had shelves full of ornaments that could be quite useful in a new way. A little collection of bunnies came into my view which also sparked a memory of some really cool “carrot” tiles I’d been saving for some reason. An ah hah moment if ever.

So off to the thrift store for a suitable box. Yes the pic above is blurry, it’s not your eyes. Sorry about that. And then a little playing about with bunnies and placement.

Starting with corners to use the “carrot” tiles. Mapping out the placement of bunnies. And that big patch on the front is for a loverly bunch of ceramic carrots I just happened to have lying around. I just love it when everything comes together.

After many hours of applying bits and pieces of various dishes and tiles, it was time to grout. I left the spaces open to glue on the bunnies and carrots later.

A little close up view of the dishes used. This is a Pique Assiette type of mosaic which in rough translation means “stolen dishes”. I had one tiny little dish that had a map of Wales on it and the colors and texture just seemed to work well with the other dishes.

Had to do a bit of adjusting with the bunnies and after gluing them in place, I mixed up a tiny bit of grout and finished the top.

Oh, I also painted the inside a nice “carroty” orange. Just for a little surprise. The bunnies seem a little surprised at being tipped.

So here they are, all waiting for more carrots.

Always Fun When Students Get Hooked on Mosaics

Posted on July 3, 2014May 23, 2025 by Helen

I’ve given classes to a lot of students over the years and I’ve always enjoyed having a chance to help people create their first Pique Assiette mosaics. Some people come to the first class with a project that they’ve been hoping to do for years and bring dishes they’ve saved just for that purpose. Others just want to try it out and we find dishes and perhaps a table to mosaic at the “Shopping Class”. And I always know that making mosaics won’t always click for everyone the same way it did for me.

Murray Goode's Dragonfly Tray — Murray Goode’s Dragonfly Tray

It’s always a bonus when some of my students keep in touch and send me emails with mosaic projects that they’ve done since those first classes. It’s so much fun to know that I’ve played a little part in getting someone else “hooked” on making mosaics.

Murray Goode's Mosaic coffee table — Murray Goode’s Mosaic coffee table

Murray Goode is one of those people who just clicked with mosaics. I sensed that he was delighted with the medium right away and I enjoyed getting a few emails later with more of his projects. Murray was still working as a school teacher when I first met him, but now he’s retired and finally has really got the time to indulge in this art form.

Murray Goode's Blue Willow Table — Murray Goode’s Blue Willow Table

We were in touch just recently and I discovered that not only is he still making mosaics, but is exhibiting and has his own website too! He has a few pieces being shown at Cabin 12 Restaurant here in Victoria. I’ve picked just a few pieces today to post, but encourage anyone to go to his website to see the work of someone who is really enjoying himself making mosaics. I know I’ll be following his website from now on, just to see what new mosaics he’s created.

Woo hoo, a new theme look and a new Gallery

Posted on June 27, 2014May 23, 2025 by Helen

I’ve been busy lately. Well, to be quite honest, Will and I have been busy with the blog lately. I really need him to keep me from losing patience with software and help with learning how to do things. We wanted a few changes in the blog. For one, the look of it. So we chose a new theme. We find it a bit cleaner looking than the old theme.

And then I discovered a new (to me, anyway) gallery plug in for WordPress called Catablog. Of course, being me, I had to have it. I thought that having a gallery of my mosaic posts would make it so much easier to visually navigate the blog if you were looking for mosaics alone. I wanted anyone to be able to search through the pics of mosaics and just click the title to go to the post about it. So after much fussing and fuming on my part, and dogged determination from both of us, we managed to create the aforementioned gallery. You can find it here.

Or, just click on Mosaic Posts Gallery on the Menu bar above. Enjoy!

A Recycled Post about Recycling for Earth Day

Posted on April 21, 2014May 23, 2025 by Helen

Today is Earth Day or for many Earth Week. I like to think that every day is really Earth Day. In honor of the day, I’ve decided to do a bit of recycling. The following is a post I wrote way back in 2010, but I think it still works. I’d like to share a bit about how to recycle in the garden and even how to use recycled dishes to create art in the garden.

Actually, Recycling, could be the main theme of our lives. Now it’s called thrifting too. We’re a couple of old Hippie artists, who were there for the start of the recycling movement. For us it’s just a way of life. We buy everything used and we also get a lot of “good stuff” as I like to call it, absolutely free. Best price there is. And as I mentioned in other posts, it’s a pretty abundant lifestyle too.

Of course we compost. Every scrap of banana peel, tea bag, coffee ground and egg shell is collected in these recycled coffee bins that I brought home from a job. The tiles on the backsplash behind them are all recycled. In fact every tile was actually free and found at garage sales or from sample boards thrown out by tile stores.

The composter the food scraps go into, was also free. Someone in the neighborhood was tossing it. Our rainbarrel is a recycled drum formerly used for soap.

In the green house, I recycle too. Every pot from years past is saved to be reused, trays are sometimes taped up to plug leaks but are still put to work. These Black eyed Susan vines are sprouting in cookie packaging.

The seeds for the Purple Cone flower, which I am rather impatiently waiting to see sprout, are planted and living under the protection of packaging, which in its previous life housed a cake bought for my birthday a short while ago.

In it’s next use it may become storage for broken dish shards in my studio, like the many, many salad green containers already put to a second use.

Out in the garden we have, now wait a second, I have to mentally count, at least 4 wheelbarrows. Only 3 are shown here. All free or almost free. All recycled. I have an abundance of wheelbarrows you could say. I think they are kind of beautiful, in a sort of colorful, shabby, knocked about and used, way.

Wheelbarrow collection, summerhouseart.com

Now that I’ve reached the garden with my recycling theme, I’d like to show you a few pieces of our garden art. Now maybe art for the garden is an odd sort of theme for Earth Day but a lot of our art is made from recyled materials. The mosaic in the herb garden is a recycled chimney covered in old dishes and tiles.

Mosaic Chimney by Helen and Will Bushell, summerhouseart.com

The stepping stones are all made using recycled dishes and tiles, a type of mosaic art called Pique Assiette. In fact, all of my mosaic artwork is made from recycled dishes, tiles and ornaments. If you would like to see how to make them check my post Creating a Mosaic Stepping Stone Helen’s Way.

And old sink found in, I must admit, unashamedly, a dumpster dive, is home to our succulents.

The chime that Bill fashioned out of an old anniversary cup found at a garage sale and hung with flattened silver cutlery is another recycled artwork. There’s much more art to see on one of my previous posts about garden art called Bill’s Driftwood Chair and Other Garden Art Whimsies.

Wind Chime by Will Bushell, summerhouseart.com

Here is another great little chime that Will made as a gift, with a metal tassel from a chandelier now no more and few beads and pieces of flattened cutlery.

Tassel Chime by Will Bushell, summerhouseart.com

There are so many things that we can recycle and reuse for our gardens from artwork to garden furniture to garden tools and implements. There really is no need to go out and buy new most of the time. I always like to say the world is an abundant place as long as you don’t mind second hand. Not buying new saves resources and cuts pollution. Buying used saves more stuff from ending up in landfills too. And the best thing is getting out and about on the weekends looking for deals at garage sales ( we always plot the most efficient course to save gas), enjoying the sun at a beach on the way from one sale and the next. Life is good. So that’s my little, I hope, upbeat, message in honor of Earth Day. Even the post is recycled.

(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 )

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Playing with Scanner Photography on a Sunday Afternoon

Posted on March 9, 2014May 23, 2025 by Helen

I’ve been having a lot of fun with Pinterest, saving all sorts of lovely images that inspire me. In fact, I may be having too much fun. Please do feel free to have a look at my Pins if you’re into Pinterst. Anyway, I keep bumping into works done by artists I’ve never heard of before and being introduced to new ideas to explore. Now I’ve heard of scanner photography before but, I just recently found out that one of the first to play with it was Harold Feinstein. Worth looking up and enjoying.

Anyway, we should have been outside pruning the Kiwi, but I got distracted showing Will the scanner photos I’d pinned. Which of course led me to trying it out and I soon had the dried Hydrangea blooms on the scanner. Will found a handy black box to cover them in and off we went.

Then we scanned the dried Amaryllis blooms …..

Which led to layering them all in Photoshop….

Which led to wanting to add even more… a lovely silk patchwork scarf perhaps?

And now, a first try at layering all three images…

Then a second try where some of my interest in patchwork and quilting started to come into play…

And last, with some subtle changes, creating a whole new patchwork with all the images. We could have gone on but we kind of like it as it is now.

An Abstract Tray

Posted on February 26, 2014May 23, 2025 by Helen

There’s something about trays. They’re easy to find in thrift shops, the ones I like the best are the light weight wooden ones with handles. They’re just the thing for a quick study in mosaic, offering a chance to try out colors or patterns or a new idea. And when finished, they’re so useful. A great way to take hot casserole dishes to parties or haul out your teapot and cups to the patio.

Of course while in thrift shops I’m always trolling for interesting dishes, too. Once I started making Pique Assiette mosaics I never looked at dishes the same way again. I tend to wonder how they will look broken up. I look for a variety of colors, texture and pattern. Sometimes I get really lucky and find a stack of dishes that has it all. And if I’ve got the money, I snap them all up, because when you’re shopping thrifts and garage sales you can’t always come back for more later.

These plates with their lovely colors and textures were one of those lucky finds. I knew I’d always like the patterns and colors and would be able to use them for more than one project. And I knew they’d have wonderful “broken” possibilities.

I could have done the whole tray in just the dishes but I chose to add more blocks of solid color using ordinary tiles in a lovely dark blue and a black. I like abstraction in mosaic, just fitting in pieces where they fit, creating a bit of a balance of colors. It’s a fun, intuitive way to work, with a surprise composition at the end.

Amaryllis Blooms – So Beautiful From Start to Faded Finish

Posted on January 21, 2014May 23, 2025 by Helen

Every Christmas I’ve always indulged in growing an amaryllis bulb. Sometimes I’ve been lucky with old bulbs sending up new flowers but this year, all I saw coming up was leaves and more leaves. So, when I spied a lovely plant already in bud in the grocery store, on sale, I swept it up with the groceries and carefully hauled it home.

And it was so lovely! And quite prolific! All in all, eight blooms in a most luscious, gorgeous scarlet.

But the show was not over, for a couple of artists, when the blooms began to fade.

The lines and furls of it’s spent blossoms were quite gorgeous too.

And when they fell off I carefully transferred those beautiful spent blooms to the window sill to keep company with a very old Hydrangea bloom, a collection of Buddha ornaments and some blue and white pottery. Very nice company indeed.