I have a new respect for mosaic artists, especially the ancient Romans, Byzantians, and Persians. For I have discovered that creating a tile mosaic takes a lot of time! A LOT! And patience? Well, even more of that. Not to mention a handy tool called a “tile nipper”, which I have only recently discovered (and wish I’d known about a year ago, as it has upped my rate of progress immensely). 🙂 I have also discovered that this labour of love is worth the aching back, the tile dust up my nose and the sliced fingers. Really!
It is with some chagrin that I admit, after a year, I am yet to complete my mosaic. I told you I’m time poor! Did I mention we had a very tropical (read: rainy) summer this year, and my mosaic is outside, in the shade, and needs at least four days of continuous dry weather to progress? (Two days to dry out from the previous thunderstorm, one day to set-up and lay tiles, and finally, one day to dry before the rain pours down again and washes away the tile glue.) Yeah, I didn’t get far last Summer.
Then I got a job! So for the last six months, I have barely had time to ensure the whole family has clean underwear, let alone fluff around doing arty-farty backyard stuff and blogging!
But enough excuses. My work contract has just finished, I will be doing far less hours for the remainder of the year, and the weather is dry at last! I have made a ruddy good start on this tiled artwork, have learnt MUCH along the way, and am progressing nicely on the quirky little piece in our tiny eastern courtyard.
And I’m loving it.
Here is the project thus far…
1. The first thing I did was jump onto Pinterest for some mosaic inspiration. There are some incredible designs that people have created in their own backyards, and shared on-line. I also borrowed a few books from the library to get more ideas, but mainly to brush up on how to tile. I hadn’t done any mosaic work since I was a teenager, and that was art and craft style, not flooring! Anyone could easily find instructional videos on-line too.
2. Next, it was off to my favourite Lifeline store (second-hand shop) for some cheap tiles. As I didn’t have a budget to speak of, I had to take what I could get! I managed to pick up a couple of wheelbarrows-full of tiles for just $15. A true bargain, but as beggars can’t be choosers, the colours were pretty plain: terracotta, yellowy beige, beige, grey and white. And a couple of interesting 1970’s patterned brown tiles I thought I could use as feature elements in the design.
3. To prepare the area, I scrubbed the concrete slab clean. It was covered in algae, as it is in a shady spot. It’s only a few metres by a few metres, so I did this by hand with a bucket of water and a scrubbing brush. A water pressure cleaner would have done the job easily too, or some chemicals, but you know me: never the easy way! Besides, I would rather get down and dirty than waste a heap of water or use harsh chemicals that would find their way into the adjacent river pretty quickly.
4. Next, the kids and I had a lot of fun smashing up tiles! ALL of the tiles. We did this by laying an old sheet on the slab, placing some tiles on one end of the sheet and folding the rest of the sheet over the top of the tiles. Then we hammered away at the tiles, through the sheet, and the sheet prevented bits from flying everywhere. We also wore gloves and safety goggles just in case. The smashed tiles, we then arranged in piles, according to their colour. There were a LOT of them, and consequently, I have a TIP for you next!
TIP It is best to smash the tiles in small amounts, as you need them. For one, they are far easier to store when still intact, and stackable. Secondly, it is an agonising process sorting through a large mountain of tiles for the very piece you need! Isn’t hindsight wonderful? Definitely use the sheet method, though. It does keep the mess to a minimum, and is much safer.
5. Then the tiling began! With a vague idea of using one of the brown feature tiles in the centre of my design, I just started placing pieces (without adhering them) until I formed an idea: I would create a star / sun element at one end of the courtyard, with the other end being fairly detail-free, as I hoped to put a table setting there which would cover up any intricate details anyway. So I glued my first tiles down, and with the idea growing, sketched some free-form shapes around the star with my daughters blackboard chalk. I also placed some border tiles to define the area.
6. Some of the designs I’d seen in my research, had pebbles within the mosaic. I happened to have an endless supply of pebbles, as our backyard was once a rock garden (before we lived here), and the stones are still there under a layer of soil and grass. I thought I’d try and create some textural interest with said pebbles. Once again, the kids joined in the fun: digging up part of the backyard, mining for pebbles!
Here’s a close-up of the work at that point. You can see the detailed little brown 70’s tile I used as a starting point for the design, and the beginning of the pebble work.
Remember I said you need patience? So far, I had spent about four hours, most of which was sorting through the piles of broken tiles for pieces that would fit together like a jigsaw. Of course, it would had been MUCH faster, had I a tile nipper, but at that stage I was blissfully ignorant that such a clever little tool existed! Which leads me to my next tip…
TIP Buy a tile nipper! It is a pincer-type tool that allows you to shape small tiles. It will save you literally HOURS of time spent sorting through piles of tiles for an exact fitting piece: you can just nip a tile into the very shape you need! Really, it’s the most important tool you could have for a project like this. I love my tile-nipper. I shall marry it one day.
7. I then took a photo of what I’d done so far, loaded it onto my iPad, and started playing with different designs. I used an app called ShowMe, but there are plenty of drawing apps where you can take a photo of something and sketch over the top of it. This is the sketch I came up with on the ShowMe app. Most colours are correct, but the yellow represents the pale yellowy beige coloured tiles.
TIP Working with photos is a great way to develop your designs. You can do it the old-school way, laying tracing paper over a photo to sketch ideas; or the modern way, with a computer programme or tablet app to sketch on top of your pictures.
To be continued…
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