A Short Look At Magnificent Art

Ann has been working on her mallard.

He is magnificent and I can't wait for people to see him in the Rain Garden

 

In the photo below, Helen's mallard may "swim" to a lower position on this panel.

Notice the water ripples and the reflections of the duck. Looks good, Helen.

 

Also on this panel, Sarah is rippling the water around the water lilies that are growing so beautifully and another front facing duck (who may have to "swim" to another spot.

 

Betsy is just about to complete her panel.

Those little egret babies are so joyful with their little head feathers sticking up.

Refreshing looking water and really pretty water lilies grace this end of the panel.

This one goes between the egret and the state flower.

I'm trying to switch the positions of two of the panels and it's making them

a little jumbled right now so that's why there aren't more photos.

Don't ask me about the switch. My tummy hurts until it's figured out for sure.

 

BUT, it was a pretty good week in the Mosaic Studio.

 

...and from our devoted regulars....

Helen has added more of her mallard duck

who is tending the three babies for the family.

Also, there is a dragon fly hovering by the cat tails. She used glass for it.

Notice the beginnings of the reflection of the duck.

She also is adding a water lily to the scene. Lots of thoughtful work here.

Oh. Em. Gee! Ann's mallard is stunning.

She's got the bill open and we can almost hear him calling out.

There's more to come on this pane. Just wait.

Sarah is "growing" lilies and lily pads.

She used the curve from the bottom side of a green plate

to show certain lines in the lily pads.

The lilies are so delicate.

A group photo of the fish from this week:

And what could be sweeter than a sea horse?!

Cori has brought the "cuteness" out in this little creature.

Nice work, Cori. Everyone will love this one. 

Oh, and just so you know we can't stop thinking about our project -
Ann N. decided to change

some of the background of her panel that was pictured in a previous post.

That meant she had to "pop" some of the tiles to replace them with the new ones.

Of course only Ann would have noticed - but that's the way we are.

This is gorgeous.

Miss Cori made an incredible shark.

So all day we were "Dah dum! Dah dum! Dah dumming"

and making like a shark attack.

That was laughter you heard coming out of the studio.

I never got Ann's finished black bird panel posted.

So, here it is. I love it.

It makes you want to pick the flowers for a bouquet.

                                 
It sure was a good week in the Mosaic Studio. Thanks for stopping by.

Look Who Came To The Mosaic Studio!

Yup - my relatives came in again today.

Below is Frankie, Madison, Izi, Emily and Cepeda.

They all wanted to see the Sky Room where some of us Old Timers met up

with Pastor Wayne Wickoren as Luther Leaguers lo those many years ago.

AND Rob and I had our wedding reception in the then elegant Sky Room.

Lots of memories.

The moms also came and all of them made something for the Community of Fish.

Below is Madison, Amy, DeeAnn, Cepeda, Tina and Emily.

This is what they accomplished. Pretty incredible work by my family if I do say so myself.

 

Wait! What? Is that Pastor Jay? And Cantor David?

YES! The two of them came in and made a fish for the C of F panel.

Below you see their self appointed "mentors" Cepeda and Izi.

Hmmmm. Guess the boys didn't need much help.

See? Pastor Jay tapped into his creative side and made a pretty cute Nemo.

And David came up with a little fish with his head turned back.

Who knew?!

He's so good at it - maybe he will change his life's work to mosaic..... nahhhhhhh.

I think we have a mosaic convert in Randy.

He came in once again with a picture of a mama manatee with her baby.

"Do you think this would work for the mosaic?" said he.

"Of course. Go for it!" said I.

Here's a close-up. Pretty sweet. 

Randy has been working on keeping his tiles directional

and using some shading - like on the back flippers.

 It was a good day in the Mosaic Studio.

"Christmas In July!" and RASPBERRY PIE.

Ann N showed up the other day with the back end of her car LOADED with free tile.

No, it wasn't a midnight raid - it was a lot of phoning and driving to collect them from various companies. I'll add the names of them as soon as I get them from Ann.







If it had been winter, Ann would have maneuvered the icy and snowy roads like a pro... all that weight in the back!

We loaded a cart with all the tile and brought it into the Mosaic Studio.

...and loaded the shelves!

We love having the option of more colors for shading...

and more blues for water and sky...

and more green, golds, reds, and whites to choose.

 

AND THAT'S NOT ALL SHE KNOWS HOW TO DO!

Those of us working last week were the happy and delirious recipients of one of Ann's raspberry pies.

Yes - she picked the berries in her berry patch and made the pie

with an incredible crust and whipped cream.

 

 Thanks so much to Ann N

for her energy, talent, determination and persistence in this venture.

AND for inspiring our taste buds with her yummy cooking/baking.

A party in the mouth for sure!

 

It was exciting days in the Mosaic Studio.

Imagination - And My Goofy Artist Friends

Here's something for you to imagine.
 It's the panel on the north side of the "box" butting up to the building:

The state flower is in the left end of this panel.
I'm working on this one. Ann N's pottery pieces are being used for the evergreens.
Turns out they have brush stroke painting on them and it gives direction to the branches.
Love those happy coincidences.

Then the baby egrets are next as they run across the panel toward their mama.

Betsy is working on this one - adding her wonderful and playful touch.

I hadn't drawn the little top feathers on the birds when designing this panel 

but Betsy put them on anyway.

A lot of personality shows up with just a few top head feathers - Yes?!!!

 

Then comes Charlotte Elizabeth beckoning her babies to come to her.

Last is the sunset panel to the right of the egret.

We were able to lay the last two together to get an idea of how they will connect up.  

 

Ann N has designed a wonderful panel that includes mallard ducks.

We split the work up into three panels.

Ann is working on the first panel with a magnificent mallard rising up out of the water.

Ann auditioned all kinds of green use for the head and came up with

this combination that shows the sheen of the feathers as if it were real.

 

There's a middle section that hasn't been started yet.

On the third section of this panel, Helen is managing to make this mallard
amazingly close to the natural colors of the real mallard.
The wing looks like it could "puff up" any time.
Watch for it next week. She may have some reflections showing up in the water.



 

  

We have some more pieces that have been finished.
Here is Helen's lovely garden bouquet.
She said there's a little butterfly in this one. Can you see it?






 Give up?
Here's a closer look:

Ann finished her goldfinch panel.

 I love it.

 

Cori has been working diligently on our Community of Fish panel.

She mosaicked the boat and is adding her own renditions of fish to help fill the spaces.

Here are her most recent three:

Others have made fish and they have turned out so colorful and wonderful.

 We will need some "filler fish" in a smaller size
so Sarah made up two bunches of various fish:

 (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain -
I mean, pay no attention to the old patterns under these fish.
These little guys are free hand fish)

One of the WILDKATS! came in today too!

(I sing in a comedy trio called the WILDKATS!) 

Beth made the fish below. It's pretty darn cute.

She even used some of the Beautiful Bruised and Burnt Beads

from the fire on Mount Lemmon in Arizona:

 This is what happens to song writers that are St. Olaf grads. I hang out with nut cases.

 Yeah. And then there's Betsy who rode her bike today.
She came in with helmet hair. It actually looks sort of cute on her..........

 Now you see some of the artists in the studio.

Do not be afraid to show up and try your hand at

making a fish for the Community of Fish.

 

It was a good day in the Mosaic Studio today.

WHEW!!!!!!!

Today, we got caught up in our thinking, once again and

re-worried about the spacing between tiles in our designs.

It's really important to have enough space for the grout

 but not too much space!

Holy cow!

I placed calls to my two mentors, Greta McLain (left message)

and Pastor Luisa Caballo (teaching a class).

Then texted a close-up photo to Greta who texted back:

"It will be fine.  Just can't use too much thinset or it's gonna be really hard to clean"

So our worries were softened a bit. Work ahead will be intense.

WHEW!!!!!!!!!!!

 

These are my Lady Slippers with some rather close tiles.

But how in the world can we get the details without some tight spaces?!!!

This will be one of the pieces that will have some extra care given during installation.

 Could there be a prettier goldfinch - ANYWHERE?

Ann is making such a splendid piece of nature.

Just look at those bird legs and the air movement.

And those pretty flowers!

 Cori has done her best work yet on her fish.

Love the use of mirrors and the aqua was a perfect choice to go with it.

This fish will join a myriad of fish in the Community of Fish on one whole panel.

 So beautiful.

These flowers have had careful choices made and Helen is making them so pretty.

She is using some of the tiles we picked up from Mosaic on a stick.

We were running out of certain colors and

St.Paul's church didn't have any more of those colors.

Plus we picked up a couple of other tile-y stuff that is being put to good use already.

AND Rob's niece Amy Englund brought us a great big bag of

glass "buttons" and sea glass.

Lucky us.

 Betsy has finished her panel with the final birch tree

so Frisky can scamper to his heart's content.

Something in the Rain Garden has startled him -

See? He's still as can be and looking out at us.

 Randy came back! Yay!

He came in armed with two pictures of fish from an article about

ancient small sculpture - this photo is of an oil holder.

So, I've got the story sort of mixed up but maybe Randy will enlighten me again.

Anyway, can't you just see the scales on his tiled fish?

They also will be part of the Community of Fish.

 We had a good week in the Mosaic Studio.