Wednesday, February 19, 2014

In The Studio

It's been a good week In The Studio which means I've been busy! That's always a wonderful thing.

The custom sun "Bohemian Blue" is on its way towards its new home as I write this. I love working on suns, stars and moons, so this was particularly enjoyable.


Using iridescent glass instead of mirror was a nice change. I'm glad I decided to do that here.


The client wants to place this in her kitchen. I think it will sparkle delightfully and catch the eye of many. I painted the sides a fresh white (not shown here). Oddly enough once I painted the sides and back, I neglected to take a photo of it.

I am lucky enough to be taking part in a mosaic mural for the Ronald McDonald House of Portland Maine called "ABC's of Life & Love" being coordinated by the amazing Amanda Edwards of Mandolin Mosaics. Her work is just as amazing as she is - do yourself a favor and go to her website. The mural, once completed, will be approximately 4 feet by 3 feet. Those of us who are contributing our time and talent were each given a letter of the alphabet to do. I got "Q". Thinking about how much I used to love to snuggle up with my daughters and now my grandson I chose to make a mosaic quilt.

I purchased the MDF square for this project as well as the sun shapes shown here from zzbob on Etsy. If you are looking for fun substrates, hop on over to their shop and take a look at what they make. They are also the folks I use when I need a crescent moon for a custom order made. They ROCK!!











My plan is to grout the quilt in white and the mesh "Q" and "q" will be grouted separately and in black. Once the grout is dry on all 3 pieces, I'm going to cut the mesh completely away and glue them down onto the quilt like this. Surprisingly most of the colors from the quilt will still be seen even with the mesh pieces glued to the top.

I have also been making a few gifts for little girls' in our family who are having birthday's soon.

This is a mosaic shoe wall art for a sweet 5 year old who loves all things princess.



Plum acrylic paint, grape glitter with a touch of silver glitter here and there. Tempered glass was glued on top of that. I normally use MAC Glue or a silicone based glue but my supplies are mostly gone with adhesives, so I used Weldbond as shown below, and I globbed it on! As you can see, it dries from white to clear in less than a week this time (it can take weeks or even months to dry). Once grouted, it will get milky colored again and there is always that threat of it not going clear again. Over time, it eventually dries to clear normally.


My daughter's boyfriend, Mark has two daughters. His youngest is having a birthday soon and will be eight! She loves purple and peace signs, so I made her this to be hung on her wall.



Both the shoe and the peace sign will be grouted in white. I think I might paint the peace sign the plum color used on the sides and back but that will be decided once it's grouted.

And last but certainly not least, I had another sun shape to use and was going to hold onto it for a while to see if I would get another custom order for one. Well, that lasted for all of a day before I decided to pull out some dollar store dishes and get smashing. I love how it looks and I'll use black grout to get these colors to pop!


When I shared this on last night after gluing the last piece down, I said because our area here in PA has been so gray lately, I decided to create my own sunshine. So there.

I'm just about out of black and white acrylic paint so until I can get more, the cool dot painted sphere I was making will have to sit for a while and wait. Also, in case you were wondering, the "Kick It Up" sphere I was making at the end of January has also been put aside. I can't decide how to continue with that one after pulling off so much of what I glued down when I made it. AND I'm also out of silicone so I can't keep going with it even if I wanted to. Weldbond would probably work but I like silicone to attach jewelry to my mosaics. It's my preference and works for me.



And that catches you all up-to-the-minute from In The Studio. Next week I may be sharing my progress on a few old window frames I pulled out of the closet. I've got some great ideas for these! But I'm fairly sure I'll do one and collapse in a heap for a while. I've only done one prior, shown below, and it took about two weeks to mosaic. These are labor-intensive and challenging but so awesome once they have a mosaic on them.


"Sunset Fire"
Support Independent Artisans, Designers and Crafters for your gift-giving needs all throughout the year. Thank you!

Stay peaceful,
Cindy