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Our Beloved Mascot, Poldo!

10/11/2019

I caught my first glimpse of Poldo, at the top of the hill, in the small town of Ploaghe, where I enjoyed my morning cappuccino each day.

Soon, he began showing up to the ex-convent where we, the artists of the 3rd Contemporary Mosaic Art Symposium, Ploaghe worked. He quickly become a constant companion to all.

Sometimes Poldo didn't want to go home, and had to be carried out of the building at the end of the day!

He even followed us around town, joining us for drinks!

Thus, the inspiration behind my latest portrait . . .

The large chunky pieces in the background, are sea polished tiles, collected on an unforgettably glorious day with my mosaic companions, on this, Sardinia beach. Each one connected to the other by a golden glass thread.

The heart, is a play on the symposium logo, seen in the center of this sign.

Our Beloved Mascot, Poldo

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New Portrait - Reverse Engineered Substrate

9/23/2019

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For my latest portrait, I used a method I learned last year at the Mosaic School in Spilembergo Italy.

My reference was an original drawing, I did earlier this year for Julia Kay's Portrait Party, in graphite, water soluble ink pencils, and a touch of white acrylic paint.

I began by enlarging and printing the image onto six 8.5x11 sheets of paper. The image was then covered by clear plastic, allowing me to see the image as I adhered my tesserae (pieces), with a polymer modified mortar, directly onto the plastic.

My materials were a variety of colorful Italian & Mexican smalti, including some luscious large riven chunks which I love, dishes, and slate.

Once I finished laying all the tesserae, the real experimentation began. Flipping the work & reverse engineering a hangable substrate. Here's a time lapse of that process....

& Tada!

I wanted to go BIG, and this portrait is indeed, the largest mosaic portrait, of just a face, I've created to date.

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Quiet Influence

9/3/2019

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Thank you Zack!

Zack Baisden was a wonderful and prolific abstract artist. When we met, soon after I'd moved to Florida, he had recently retired from teaching art. We often gallery sat together, and chatted about all sorts of things; travel, relationships, and everything art.

Rest in Peace, dear Zack.
You will be missed!

One quiet morning at the Gallery, not long after I'd begun my daily portraiture drawing, he explained to me, in quite some detail, how to approach the human eye.

I've never forgotten those words, and refer to them often. His gentle voice and influence will always remains in my heart, hand, and mind.

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Double Commission - Behind the Scenes

7/25/2019

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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.

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!

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!

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

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Australia - Final Stop!

3/15/2018

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Finally, the day arrived when I met Belinda, the amazing woman who organized my entire Australian tour. She performing heroically to pull it all together! We had an incredible time together, definetly kindred spirits!

Belinda & her husband Ian, have a beautiful property out in the country. The have greenhouses where they grow vegetables, an orchard with all types of fruit trees, plenty chooks (chickens) and a couple of very cute fur babies!

One of my favorite things is fresh off the tree figs. I was really disappointed that they didn't ripen in time for me to pick and eat them. I kept checking, but no figs for me!

Being out in the country, Belinda assured me that I would see some of Australias unique wildlife. Sometimes, they just appeared in front of us, and to see others we had to go out hunting in the night.

This is an Echidna - a slow moving porcupine like creature with multi colored spikes!

There were always a wide variety of birds at the feeder.

It was an exciting day when we were lucky enough to spot a kangaroo at the edge of the property.

The kookaburra really does laugh, loudly! The ladies in my workshops sang many rousing choruses of the old song, Kookaburra sits in an ole gum tree, for me ..... I hadn't heard that song since I was a child.
& It's true!

Gaia - Belinda's super stunning mosaic studio guardian

Two portrait workshops and one flower workshop ensued. All full, with amazingly friendly, fun and talented people. Here are some of the works in progress and results of their hard work.

It was super exciting when I found out that my good friend and colleague Freya, that I worked with in Malaysia, could drive over for a visit. We hadn't seen each other in 20 years. We had a lovely few hours catching up, with endless giggles as we tried to get one acceptable photo!

Another fun excursion was taking a ride on the Puffing Billy Railway. The line is one of the most popular steam heritage railways in the world and is kept in operation through the efforts of volunteers of the Puffing Billy Preservation Society. The railway aims to preserve and restore the line as near as possible to how it was in the first three decades of its existence, but with particular emphasis on the early 1920s.
I was told that normally everything is lush green, but unfortunately what I saw was mostly brown, due to the recent drought conditions.

We were lucky to have Conductor Fraser, a friend of Belinda's, ride with us, as our personal guide.

Though I flew in and out of Melbourne, this is all I saw of the city, driving to and from the airport. Hopefully next time I'll get there!

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Next stop - Sydney!

3/1/2018

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Meet my wonderful host Kerry! She took great care of me during my time in and around Sydney & organized the 2 Picassiette workshop that I taught here.

Our first excursion was to the Blue Mountains, with a very important stop along the way. I finally got to meet Marian Shapiro in person! She is an incredible mosaic artist I've "known" & communicated with online for 10+ years. It was such a thrill to meet her and her husband David. It was amazing to step into her light filled studio and see all the amazing work she has going on there. It was also a special treat to view their extensive art collection. Not only Marians mosaics, but works by artists from all over the world. Just a few of them are in the photo below.

Marian, with one of her stunning, undulating mosaics hanging on the wall, and a work in progress on the table.

I love the mountains!

Rocks & Stone!

& the smell of eucalyptus trees wafting thru the air..... Ahhhh

I taught 2 workshops - Flowers and Portraits
Here are the results & happy creators.

It was a gorgeous day to take the train and then the ferry into Sydney. Approaching the iconic Opera House from the river was a treat.

The area around the opera house was bustling with activity. Aboriginals dancing and playing the didgeridoo, strange blow-up sculptures, the Art Museum (which was sorely disappointing).... lots of great people watching!

Another huge thrill was meeting Julia Sattout and her family. Julia is a fellow member of Julia Kay's Portrait Party, an online art group. It amazes me that I can walk into someone's home, and recognize, not only her paintings, but the subjects of each painting, all of whom, I have also drawn or painted myself. Another JKPP artist met, and signature in my Portrait Revolution book!

& a few random shots from my final walk around the city.

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Brisbane - Mosaic workshop!

2/24/2018

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My Brisbane workshop was held at the home studio of Catherine Conaty. We had such a great time together, hitting it off immediately, as if we'd been friends forever!

One of the first places she took me, was to see a mosaic installation she did on this long wall for a private residence.

Here you can see some of the lovely mosaic, glass on glass, spinners that Catherine makes. I love how they brighten up her studio, and garden.

We had a super lovely group of people for the workshop. Several of them had extensive experience with stained glass, 2 of them being instructors at the Brisbane glass guild. Everyone did great work, while enjoying themselves and helping each other.

On the second morning we all met before the workshop at a local gem and stone shop. AMAZING.....

& their daughter, with her best friend, dressed up for a special event at school. Too cute!

Catherine's husband Mark, a great guy & wonderful father. We had lots of wonderful conversations. Besides, he's also a terrific cook, which was very much appreciated!

For a special treat, on my final day, I took Catherine for her first ever reflexology session. I love having a foot massage, especially after being on my feet for days, teaching and touring. Ahhhhhh!

And finally, A mandatory excursion to visit the Koala sanctuary..... pretty much impossible to spot them in the wild. Australia has so much cool wild life!

Farewell Brisbane - It's been fabulous!

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On to Brisbane, Australia

2/17/2018

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Right off the bat, I managed to lose my glasses. Bifocals.

I realized this as we were driving from the airport to my host's home. I'd dropped them in the airport when I put on my sunglasses to walk outside. I can picture exactly where & when it happened.... but, try as I may, with many calls to the airport and airlines, they were never recovered.

Consequently, a visit to the opthomologist who was very accommodating and made me a quick pair of distance glasses. Fortunately I brought along my prescription reading glasses. So, I'll just have to get used to juggling 3 pairs of glasses, for the remainder of my time in Australia!

My first full day, I spent enjoying Brisbane's riverwalk. It's a really beautiful city, with a lovely manicured park, with an urban beach at its core....

Of course, I was delighted to find several mosaics along the pathway.

These strange looking birds were everywhere. Apparently they're quite annoying, noisy and dirty.

Just a couple of the names I heard locals call them, bin chickens or tip chooks.

If you want to know more, check out this song/video!

At the end of the river walk are the Art and Natural history museums. Both excellent. Just a few pics of exhibits, art and nature that made an impression.

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Finally, I made it to Perth, Australia

2/12/2018

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This is where I stayed while in Perth! It was amazing for me to stay in this idyllic and beautiful location, with a view of the Indian Ocean. The little blue building on the right is Pat's mosaic studio.

Pat & Horst, were my incredible hosts! They were so generous, kind, and knowledgable. Horst, being a professional chef, made sure I didn't go hungry! He cooked many a fine meal, presented on carefully arranged plates. (I can't believe I didn't take any photos of his beautiful & delicious food!)

Speaking of plates... Here's Pat collecting goodies for my picassiette portraiture workshop.

Thrift store shoppers of the world unite!

This shimmering mosaic, by Pat, was the first thing I saw each time I entered her home. Her welcoming entryway, surpassed by their hospitality, made me feel right at home.

Another amazing person who was instrumental in getting me to Perth, is Dorothy. I so loved having time to get to know her. Both Dorothy and Pat are active with MAANZ, the Australia/New Zealand mosaic community.

The Art Supply store where my workshop was held, was aptly named Friendz. And, to my great surprise, located on Pensacola St!

Hey! That's where I live!

Inside, the workshop begins, with everyone drawing. It was a wonderful 3 days. The room was soon full of laughs and learning as everyone worked diligently on creating thier portraits, over the next 3 days.

I just love the diversity of their work and all their smiling faces!

Between travel and workshops I was able to get in a few day trips. Pat & I took the ferry from Elizabeth Quay to Freemantle.

For my final day, Dorothy arranged for a picnic with the students from my workshop and other MAANZ members from the area. We spent a lovely day at the Western Australia Botanical Gardens. I really enjoyed the paths, views and interesting botanical delights I'd never seen before!

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Headed to Australia!!!

2/7/2018

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My Australia Adventures begins - A late start!

My first flight, out of my home airport, was delayed. I finally arrived in Dallas as my flight to Sydney was taking off. 24 hours wait until the next flight!

Luckily, my friend Amy, a fun, fellow mosaic addict, offered to show me around town. We drove to the area where Dallas' art museums are located, then realized it was Monday and everything was closed. So, we went out for a festive lunch and chilled in her awesome art & flamingo filled garden!