Dragon Fly Mosaic

OK it's been a long time, but I have finally had enough proddings from Dearest Greta to post another project on this blog.  This time I will tell you a bit about my passion for mosaics.

In case you didn't know, Greta has a sister, Leslie who requested that I make a dragonfly mosaic for her newly remodeled apartment.  After making the huge-a-mongous mosaic at the Roscoe Outpost, I figured it would be a breeze.  Here is a picture of my first mosaic which Greta helped me design:  OOops I have to take a new picture.  It seems my others are "lost" ?!So to keep moving along, here is how I started!  Looking in my favorite mosaic book -

I decided on the dragonfly as it would best fill the space and add lots of color to the hallway.  The second picture with the flower was a serious consideration because it would not over power the space but decided that the hall could use a prominent feature.

Looking through my collection of broken ceramics, glass beads, and old tiles, I drew up a design.

 Cutting a huge piece of paper to the size of the wall to be decorated, I drew a dragonfly.  After sorting through my shard collection, I attached them to the mesh pattern pieces with a glue gun. Mastic was used to stick the mesh segments to the wall.  I traced the dragonfly pattern onto the wall so it would be easy to place the segments of Ms D Fly!

This shot also shows the tool used to grout the crevices between the tiles and beads after they are on the wall.  It is called a caulking tool and is sold at Home Depot.  I eventually cut off the end with the metal blade because it would get in my way when grouting close to the perpendicular wall.

 The wall space allowed for a bit of free style design area in the background!

Here is the best shot of the overall mosaic with a few close ups of detail.  It is difficult to photo because of the narrow hallway and limited natural light.

Zing!!  As you will notice the white background incorporates various shades of white and harder to notice but also different textured white tiles to give the work depth and life.

I would have liked to incorporate more pics along the way but it was tougher for me to get the camera a'rolling than to get the shards a'sticking!