Dogs and Workers and Guests! Oh my!

Snowball came for a visit today! He is adorable and well mannered.

Ann N. has trained him well and he's soooo cute!

His tail never stops fanning the air - thus a blurred photo of the "Happy Ending".

 

 Not to be absent and upstaged, Gladys (Sarah's dog) became a reality in tile.

This turned out to be a wonderful image of Gladys.

She's lovely. Nice job, Sarah.

Sorry, but you'll have to tip your head on this one.

She jumped just as the picture was taken.

Sarah finished another wave.

She included some fish by anonymous (until someone owns them) 

and a turtle by Frankie.

Oh wait! I think I made the fish. Must have been dreaming.

Here's a closer look.

7 year old Frankie (our granddaughter) was in the mosaic studio on Saturday

when I took some family members on a short tour of our work.

Frankie got the Arizona beads out and made this turtle in about five minutes.

She's "cute, smart and advanced for her age"

 to quote a cousin of Rob's when our first borns were infants.

Nice turtle Miss Francesca.

 

 Ann N put a few leaves onto Tessla's (Margaret's granddaughter)
berry branch to finish it off. Beautiful. Looks almost good enough to eat!

 

Always a pleasure to have visitors.

And sometimes those visitors sit down and have a try at the project. Yay!

Below are Margaret, Helen, Ann N, Sue and Sarah W.



 

Arlene chats with Cori while others continue their art work.

It was a good two days in the Mosaic Studio.

 

 

 

I suppose you were wondering.......

I suppose you were wondering how this all gets done.

First you have to measure the area to receive the mosaic.

Pastor Luisa Cabello graciously did this task for us. 

Then draw out the blank areas onto paper (we used paper tablecloth) 

and tape them up to the wall.

Then the design is penciled in.

When you are satisfied with your design, the lines are darkened with magic marker.

 

The next step is to determine where the breaks will be

to make the piece more manageable to work with..

Those pieces are attached to cardboard backing.

Plastic goes over the design and then a mesh to glue the tiles on to.

This part takes longer than you might think...

......all that cutting and cutting and taping and taping and taping.

Ugh. Not my favorite part.

Larger areas must be divided into more sections for easier installation.

The piece above will go at the back of the "box" below.

Bob the Builder will also have a red winged blackbird

and a loon to accompany him in this design.

And that's your mosaic lesson for today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gladys Graced our Studio!

Sarah's dog Gladys came for a visit Wednesday.

She is a very good visitor and minds her mistress.

Gladys enjoys a little scratching under her chin -

and on her head -

and of course loves to be petted.

She's such a good dog and has visited us so many times that

it was decided she should represent the canine population in our mosaic.

Here's a possibility - Gladys curled up and sleeping quietly.

Can you see her?!!! Hint: She has a Lady Bug nose.

 We have a few extra fish to incorporate into the waters....
.....and by golly, we've got a MERMAID (made by Cepeda E.).
AND she has a treasure chest with precious gems below the water.

Here's a closer look:

  Jane has finished her panel of water
and has incorporated a fish of polished rocks made by Ann N
with the rocks from Sandra T's mom's collection.
Lucky us.

  Cori has invited Sarah's fish to swim in her water panel.

That little fishy must like the exotic purple water.

Sarah nestled my koi fish in a wave.

Isn't that fish clever? She can swim UP!

(either that or I couldn't get the photo to turn after many different tries!)

It was a good Tuesday and Wednesday in the Mosaic Studio.

 

A Little Creative Machine

I've been under the weather and unable to come into the mosaic studio this week.

But others have moved on like a little creative machine.

Helen and Cori worked on Tuesday and finished this beautiful wave.

Helen was kind enough to take the photo and send it to me.

 

Don't even know if anyone came in on Wednesday....

I've lost control!  

Naaahhhhh. Never had control.

This wonderful mosaic team is right on target with our creations.

You too, could be enjoying the camaraderie. C'mon in!

 

We're almost half done!

There are still some waves and flower gardens to make

and probably some marsh weeds as well.

I'm thinking egret. We'll see.

Open House!!!

We've been working on the mosaic project since January of this year.

The results are in; it's beautiful!

We want you to be able to get a little preview of lovely things to come

so we're having a little

 Open House this Easter Sunday

before and after the 11:00 service

Come and take a look.

The finished and almost finished panels are displayed on tables

in the Caterpillar Room across from the Bartch Room inside the side door.

 

Here's what you'll see first:

 

These are end panels

where the sides of the trough step down

A close-up of Ann's panel.

Ann used a lot of the Mount Lemmon beads in this one with amazing results.

 

Linda is enjoying making the waters flow.

Many flowers made by the children

will be in the Children's Flower Garden

Some of today's workers were on school break.

This is Margaret's grandson, Camron

and granddaughter Tessla.

Watch for Tessla's berries on a vine. Camron put his special mark on a wave so he will be able to identify which one he did.

 

 And these are three of our seven grands: Cepeda, Isabel and Francesca.

It was a good day in the mosaic studio.

.

Working Alone - but wait! Here come a few more.

I was working all alone on Wednesday morning. Rather nice for a while. But it got kind of lonely in the studio so I took a break and wandered upstairs to the office.

I was in search of a cookie or something. Sue took pity on me and offered a nut bar with DARK CHOCOLATE. Mmmmmmm. That hit the spot.

Plus, there were people to talk with.

Just five minutes of socializing took care of my loneliness

so back to the studio with Dennis N. next to me....

....(since I made him agree to come and take a look at the project).

Dennis had some good advice for parts of the job. Thanks Denny.

 

I worked on my wave.

Auditioned a green for the end wave. That looked fine.

So that got put in.

A Lucite tile made in another workshop got added to the light blue wave and a fishy got it's audition on the left.

  Finished the panel with two fish jumping into the waves, some Arizona beads here and there. And Wah-Lah!

Then Helen came in. Yay! And Ann. 

Then Sarah sauntered in. 

 Sarah finished another panel.

Everyone was making waves.

Helen made use of some of the gorgeous rocks from Sandra T in this wave panel.

And here are a couple other finished panels.

 

It was a good day in the mosaic studio.  

 

 

A Cat Named Lewis

Sarah G and I worked alone on Tuesday.

Sarah decided that the garden needed a cat to bask in the flower garden.

So first she found a calendar picture of a cat and scaled it down to a size

that would fit in the children's flower garden.

After sketching it out and layering on to the cardboard with plastic and mesh, 

 she began to do the mosaic work.

See? The ears his little nose are made of stones donated by Sandra T., H.T. librarian.

 The eyes are two beads from Mount Lemmon, Arizona that were cracked in half.

What you see are the insides of said beads 

since they were set with the half hole forward.

The whiskers are made of mirror cuts.

Lewis the Cat turned out to be so cuuuuuute!

 Nice job, Sarah.

 

It was a good day in the mosaic studio.