Double Commission - Behind the Scenes

For the past several months I've been working on a commission for the garden of a private residence.  

In February I gave a talk to a local art group about my experience attending The 3rd Contemporary Mosaic Art Symposium in Sardinia Italy (subject for another post - long overdue).  The following day I was contacted by a woman who had been at the talk,  who commissioned me to create 2 mosaics for her beloved garden.  She'd been introduced to a variety of materials during my talk, and as a result decided on Mexican Smalti, as her material of choice.  OK by me!    

I composed the second design from a selection of pics the client sent me, of her favorite flower varieties.   This final painting,  was done after several drawings, revisions, and chats with the client.

​The first directive I received, was for lots of color!!! An osprey and flowers.

As the osprey would be comprised of neutral colors, I wanted to create a dramatic and colorful background for him to soar above.

The Smalti Arrives!

Mexican smalti is absolutely luscious.  Every tesserae  unique, with lots of color variation, making it both exciting and complicated to work with. 

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​I chose to use a lightweight, waterproof, substrate which comes in a variety of thicknesses.  The Osprey was cut out of the 1 inch substrate which was latter attached to the 1/2 inch background substrate.  I was thrilled to find that the 1/2 boards come in 4'x5' sheets, the size of the flower mural.

Here I am holding the completed osprey, so you can get a sense of its size.

Finally, with all the materials in the studio, I started by cutting out the osprey shape.

& the adhering begins!

I really enjoyed working on the dramatic seascape, folding each colorful band into the next.  Slowly, cut by cut & piece by piece, surrounding the osprey.

​Adding some white caps... and more color!

The Osprey flew off to his new garden home .... On to the flowers!

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I started by transferring a cartoon of my design to the substrate, and began the setting here....

You can see how much variety there is in the Mexican Smalti color mixes.  The red is more  burgundy.  I was hoping for a bit more of a true red, but that didn't seem to be available. As ever, I enjoyed the challenge of improvising and experimenting with lots of different color combinations.

​After many weeks of work the mosaic is ready for grout!

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​The Flower mosaic is now ready for installation in the garden, along with The Osprey.  Stay tuned for photos of both works in situ!