My Mosaic Wall – My Sugar Glider

A lot of people still don’t know what a Sugar Glider is, which is probably a good thing. They’re adorable, snuggly, loyal, and more work than someone would expect for a tiny marsupial that weighs less five ounces. A lot of people buy them on impulse, like Ivy and I did, and then realize they’re not just an expensive, smart, hamster-sized creature that is content to live alone in a cage and chew things. A lot of them end of being neglected or rehomed. Ivy and I had one for eight years until she passed away. Mia, as we named her, had a lot of adventures with us. She was on Pets 101 on the Animal Planet with us, played escape artist and got lost several times in our old place, and spent about six hours a day on average sleeping in my shirt and sharing my lunch when I worked from home.

A few weeks ago I thought it would be fun to add a sloth to a bare spot I had on the wall. I looked at cartoon pics of a sloth and laid out a draft of it on a 12 inch square tile. I was pretty excited at how cute it was and expected this to be an easy project. I used bathroom white tile from the Habitat for Humanity Restore, gray floor tile from the same store, and various pieces of brown glass tile and black penny tiles from Home Depot. I’ve got some Dollar Tree broken plates for the leaves.

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Unfortunately once I added it to the wall it looked terrible. But I wasn’t worried because once I add the grout everything usually falls into place. Except because there was so much white, it didn’t look at all like a sloth.

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So I painted the in between spots with black grout paint. It looked ridiculous. And worse, I discovered sloths didn’t have tails so I had to chip away the tail, much to the annoyance of the husky next door who DID NOT LIKE all that hammering and chiseling. This was the final, which I hated. I planned to go out the next day and chip the whole thing off the wall which I have never done before but I was not pleased with it, at all.

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When I looked at it closely, I saw that it kind of reminded me of Mia, my old Sugar Glider. She was gray and hung upside down from things and resembled this bad attempt at a sloth. She passed away a few years ago and I had failed to memorialize her on the wall previously.

I picked up medium gray grout stain and mixed it with my grout. I chiseled away the nose and the sky where the big ears would need to go. I didn’t want to chip away the sky where the sloth tail had once been, and add the tail back. But Sugar Gliders have long tails. I placed the tail tile over the sky tile, to go give it a 3D look but more so because I didn’t want to start chipping away too much of the long-settled piece beside it.

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Finally, my finished result! Still not great but a lot cuter than it was before and now I’ve got my little Mia to make me smile when I look at the wall.

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Now that I’ve got the gray stain I may go back and work on the Easter Island heads again. If I do, I’ll add an update to the last entry.

Two weeks ago I started an oil painting class so I may be adding pictures of new art one of these days.

Until then, happy creatiing!

Tracy

My Mosaic Wall – Holding Hands Around the World

Since the wall beside my house is getting full, I decided to start adding mosaics to the back wall, at the top of my hill. I knew it was going to be a large project. It would have to be so we could see it from the patio. Here’s my original sketch. I planned to surround the earth with people holding hands. Looking at the finished product every day (we can see it from the couch in the living room if we scrunch down) reminds me that there’s a lot of love and hope in this world.

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I wanted the people to be uniform size which I would not be able to accomplish unless I bought pieces already cut. I picked up a few containers of these from Amazon. I never measure anything and was relieved in the end that I had just about enough of the little pieces to complete the people circle. For consistency’s sake I decided to use black penny tiles for the heads since I only had blue, black or silver. I like the uniformity of the black heads.

The first day involved smashing a lot of Dollar Tree green plates. Finding green tile is really hard so I rely on Dollar Tree plates, and sometimes The 99 Cent Only Store. In this case I used up all my plates (1st picture) then had to stop for the day. Carrying tile up and down the hill, and trying to kneel and balance among the cacti and gopher holes was physically taxing. Luckily Granola was there to keep me company.

The next day I smashed some new plates. I finished the land masses and started on the water. I had some Dollar Tree blue plates, some small (about 3 inch) mosiac or subway tile from Lowe’s, and some of my friends’ leftover pool tile. I decided to add in a “love ocean” just because. I’m used to doing a whole project in an hour or two and grout it the next day. This was a much larger project and took four days overall.

Day three I used tile adhesive to glue all the people around the earth. I started on the bottom because I knew I’d be too worn out to sit in that position and stretch all the way up by the end. It was a good decision. This step took four hours (straight). Initially I was going to add the people and put yellow tile all around them. But because of the work involved, and how cute they looked on the tile, I decided against it. One thing I hadn’t considered was that if I put adhesive on the back of the pieces and pressed down, there would be extra goop that I needed to clean off. The pieces were small and hard to maneuver so I used a wooden skewer and had to clean up around all the edges, piece by piece, person by person.

By the end, there were 53 little people around the circle. I started with solid colored people but I ran out of matches and the ones on the top are all different colors. Finished product without the grout.

At night a solar spotlight shines on it. It was a lot of work but this is my favorite mosaic so far. I do feel a little bad that we can probably never sell the house now both because I love the wall too much and also because a new owner may not love it at all. Since I plan to be here until I’m dead, I’m not too worried about it and will keep beautifying the concrete.

Here’s to creativity!

-Tracy

My Mosaic Wall – The California Flag

I’m at a crossroads with my wall. The area I can see from my patio is full. I now have to stand to my left to see all of it where the corner of the house is. To the left of the wall is a tree I don’t want to tile behind. I could tile up the wall on the hill, or against the back wall but I’m worried about water from when I water the plants. At this point I think I’ve decided I’ll continue the wall even if it’s beside the house and I can’t get a picture of it all at once. That’s what video is for.

For today though, I’m posting about my take on the California flag with its symbolic bear. One thing I learned pretty quickly into this project is that drawing bears is hard. Here are the first few steps I took. As you can see I wasn’t off to a promising start.

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With determination, this finally all came together. All told it took about two hours the first day, and about fifteen minutes the next day for the grouting. First picture is the end of day one with no grout. When the project was done, I used black grout paint to make the bear’s white of his eye smaller. I sprayed the whole thing with grout sealer the third day and hoped the paint would withstand the heavy rain (and even hail that looked like snow on the other side of town). It worked out fine. I used a variety of tiles this time, from Dollar Tree broken plates to donated tile from friends, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Habitat for Humanity markdowns.

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Final pictures are of my trusty tile companion Granola. This was from another project but she’s always by my side and deserves a shout out.

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Thanks for visiting!

-Tracy

My Mosaic Wall – COVID-19 and Dr. Fauci

I couldn’t let the year go by without acknowledging the two things that took over and altered everyone’s live in 2020: COVID-19 and Dr. Fauci.

When COVID-19 started to become a household word in March 2020, like many people, we watched the nightly TV broadcast of President Trump and Dr. Fauci. There were other speakers like Dr. Birx and generals and other health experts, but Dr. Fauci became the man our country turned to for the truth about the status of COVID-19.

All our lives were turned upside down, and as we’ve wrestled with one restriction after another, one loss after another, the root of it has been this darn virus. Since my wall is an homage to everything in my life (that I can relay in tile) plus some other things that are just fun, like the dolphin, I had to give it and Dr. Fauci a spot on my wall.

I made his glasses from a Christmas tree hook since they’re abundant in our house right now. I used from silver penny mosaic tiles, some glass sparkly strips Home Depot, and some broken plates from Dollar Tree. I also used some square green mosaic tile I bought last year.

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I added his mask and glasses after I grouted as they were an extra layer. I need to go back and fix his arm. It’s a tiny figure and at the time I didn’t notice his elbow. Still though I think it’s a good depiction of the virus and it’s communicator, trapped in a frame that I hope means it will be contained.

My Mosaic Wall – Seasons and Flowers

Though my original tree was a bit of a mess, the next one I made is still one of my favorite pieces. For this I used a lot of broken plates from the 99 Cent Only Store. For the branches I used pieces of glass tile leftover from my kitchen renovation.

On the heels of that, I made a winter tree, which reminded me of New England winters that were such a wonderful part of my past. This was a combination of mosaic tiles from sheets (green and brown) and broken white tiles I bought in a sheet.

What I’ve noticed when creating this wall is how different items look once they’re surrounded by more tile. Later I broke dark blue dishes from the 99 Cent Only Store when I was creating a night sky and constellations, and added them around the tree.  For this I painted the grout with black grout paint and wiped away the extra.

For Valentine’s Day I made a heart. Nothing very impressive but you can at least tell what it is. You can see the chalk line, where I planned the size. Once I started working on it, I realize I’d never have enough red tile to make it that big. It ended up smaller but still plenty big enough. The picture below is before it was grouted.

The wall was coming along but there was so much ugly gray concrete left to cover. I’d made some palm trees which didn’t look great so I wanted to spruce those up as well (tree pun). This was done with a combination of craft stones, and various colored penny tiles I bought from Home Depot online because stores don’t carry them.

Where I live in Southern California there are a lot of fires. Though my house has been spared, and hopefully will continue to be safe because we live toward the center of town, not by the hills, there are a lot of burned trees around. After a fire, you see a lot of black trees. Often enough though, you will also see leaves growing out of them, and eventually, a lot of regrowth. I used river rocks from the Dollar Tree to represent all the burned trees that continue to sprout life.

And because I now live in the southwest, I felt compelled to make a cactus.

As always here is a picture of the grout and adhesive I use.

Here’s a current picture of the wall from August 3.

I hope you’re enjoying my tile journey.

-Tracy

My Mosaic Wall – Underwater Life

When trying to find new ideas for the wall, I found clearance penny tiles at Home Depot. They were pearlescent and shimmery and instantly made me think of fish scales. Needing guidance, I searched Google and saw several images of fish. One would think making a fish would be pretty easy.  It’s a basic shapes, limited colors right? For some reason this was harder than I thought it would be.

 

The layout on the white board was after several rounds of rearranging pieces until it actually looked somewhat like a fish.  Unfortunately I can’t capture how sparkly it is with the camera. Especially at night, the piece is as pretty at Rainbow Fish.

Sometime later, I decided to expand upon the underwater section and made a small red and white fish, a seahorse, and LOVE spelled out with seaweed and an octopus.

It may be hard to see the letters but look closely. I made sure the octopus had eight legs. In retrospect I should have used more dark green to make the letters but I didn’t have a lot of green left. Unlike some artists who have the best materials, and inventory everything beforehand, I look at what I have on hand and create from there.

Here’s a picture of the products I use in addition to tile and broken plates.

And here is a current picture of the wall from today, August 3rd.

Until next time, happy tiling!

-Tracy

 

 

 

 

My Mosaic Wall – Out of This World

Since I created elements of the wall and patched them together later, much the way a person gradually fills in their skin canvas with tattoos, I can go back after the fact and post by type. Had I known the wall art would get so extensive I would have shared it from the onset.

One of the first items I added was the sun. Shortly after, I began to add stars. This was around the time I discovered I could get penny tiles at Home Depot online. The sun was a mixture of broken 99 Cent Store plates and yellow penny tiles. The stars are penny tiles.

I also discovered black grout paint. On other scenes I tried to mix the paint with the grout but it came out a charcoal gray or lighter and I didn’t like the effect. What I’ve done since is paint the white in between the tiles with a toothpick or Q-tip. I can wipe or scrape away the paint from the tile later. This was a great discovery for me and opened up a whole new world of options for me.

I managed to snag about a dozen dark blue plates from the 99 Cent Store which made me think of a night sky. I set out to make a night sky with stars. Later I added a moon and more night sky to fill in blank areas.

Over on the right, I made a Martian in honor of my daughter’s father who is obsessed with UFOs, and also to commemorate the fact that the government  quietly announced there are UFOs out there and have been the whole time. Maybe that’s paraphrasing, but announcing it in the midst of a pandemic, and protests and riots for the George Floyd killing, pushed it to the very bottom of the news, below the Kardashians.

As always, here’s a pic of the materials I use. I’m not getting a commission on this, and don’t provide a link. I just love these products. For small jobs like this too, it would be a hassle to be mixing grout all the time and guessing how much to use.

Here’s an overall picture from today. I’m still adding so stay tuned.

My Mosaic Wall – The Dolphin

Once I made my first item on the wall, and learned a lot of what not to do, I was prepared to do something bigger and better. I decided to make a dolphin. It’s worth noting that except for being able to envision and describe things, I’ve always conceded that I don’t have much artistic ability. More and more though, as I complete this wall and look at some of the crafts and handiwork in my house, I’m thinking maybe I was too hard on myself. I’ve judged my work against artists who can draw something exactly as it looks. But haven’t just as many, or more, artists whose interpretations of what they see filled galleries with their work? My creations are certainly not gallery worthy, or anything I’d sell (except apple butter at fundraisers) but I need to stop thinking of my work as “something a kindergartner would do.” Which is how I usually describe my wall. As you’ll see in future posts, much of it has become a snapshot of people and pets and occasions in my life, right now. It’s a giant tile time capsule. It’s a way of expressing myself and capturing everything around me. It’s art for art’s sake, the best kind.

Since dolphins are complex,  I knew I needed to lay this one out on a whiteboard I used previously for brainstorming stories and books. It was collecting dust in the shed so I resurrected it and now it’s my go to layout board.  I recall using the tile cutting machine I bought when we did the kitchen, and painstakingly making a black circle for the eye, and carefully cutting the pieces of gray marble. Since then I discovered I can buy penny tiles from Home Depot online, and they’re already perfect circles. They’re the size of pennies and come in a sheet. The trend for home decorating now is white and tan and gray so it’s hard to find any fun colored tiles in the stores. I starting checking eBay and Home Depot for colored tiles.  I’ve gotten some for very little cost this way. I also check the Home Depot and Lowes stores for sale tile sheets.

Initially I bought mosaic tile from Amazon but when I got it, it was a box of tiny, thin pieces, shown above for the water and sun. I didn’t use it on the actual wall for the sun and didn’t have any other yellow then. There’s nothing wrong with thin tiles but when you have different height in the tiles, you can lose them when you’re grouting unless you remember to dig away the grout.

This is the completed dolphin before I added any grout. I was pretty excited about it, mainly because it looked so much better than the trees.

Next I added in some water. The blue glass was from a man on eBay who I drove an hour to meet rather than wait for it to come in the mail.  The only problem with it is that it’s glass and not ceramic tile, so if I smash it with a hammer it shatters and the shards fly into my legs (I’m usually in shorts and barefoot). Generally I try to fit it and otherwise use different tile when I’m trying to get into small spots. You can see some medium blue triangles. Those were the small ones from Amazon I mentioned. This is how I learned not to use them with the thicker tile. The black tile is from the Habitat from Humanity store.

The next day I grouted. After this follows a later picture when I added a couple of palm trees and a sun. Those we done later but I don’t have a picture of the dolphin and trees only. Looking below I went back and added some other tile to the tree to get it to look better.

Here’s a picture of my go to materials, which I’ll add every time. I also use this adhesive and this grout. You can use something else but I prefer this texture. It’s easy to work with especially on a vertical surface. Since I like to immerse myself in the process I used to do this barefoot, and I never wear gloves because they tear on the broken tile anyway.  Eventually I had to start wearing shoes because too many times I got tiny bits of glass or tile in my feet and couldn’t get them out. I still do it all bare handed though and cut my fingers pretty regularly. Not bad cuts though, no sutures yet. The first couple of times I used a putty knife to spread the grout but because of the uneven surfaces it didn’t work well.

Since I’m writing these posts retroactively, here’s what the wall looks like today.

Until next time, thanks for reading.