Jelly Fishing

Meanwhile, what have I been doing in class? Jelly Fishing. I actually started a piece that was going to be a close up of a coast line that had giant sea urchins and such, but then decided that I wanted to make those in ceramics, do the sand in unglazed black porcelain tile (which is AMAZINGLY difficult to get--you wouldn't have thought so but there you go), and have various rocks, shells, bits of mirror and glass--a mixed media piece, in short. Anyway, it was turning into a real confused palaver and, until I sorted that out, I had to get started with something in class. So, I set aside the other one (which is going to be on a piece of wood) and, inspired by some recently acquired books on the ocean, coral reefs and such (the benefits of a great Christmas), I set to work on this. I really had no plan other than use colors I would not ordinarily use and to use an entirely different pattern for each creature.

I'm pleased with how the jellyfish looks. This whole mosaic was incredibly satisfying to do; everything fell together just right. One person has said that it looks like a landscape in outer space and the brain coral in the upper left is a moon; another said it looked like an underwater Wonka Factory with everything made out of candy. Sounds like a novel for the 9-12 set in the making.

The Thing is DONE!

I can't believe it. Here it is, after a mere 19 months or so of effort. I tried to photograph The Thing (as I call it) from straight-on, but there was always a glare spot on The Thing's face. I had a lens filter, a bounce flash--no dice, still glare. A real photographer would know what to do, but this photographer simply moved to the side a foot or so.

Simon insisted that there be a penguin classic placed in front of The Thing to show the size of it. (It's The Innocence of Father Brown.)

Here is a close up of The Hulk's face. Because his face is, strictly speaking, a human face with real emotion, it was the hardest thing to capture with the glass. I don't think it's a complete success, but it isn't as bad as I feared it would be when I was putting it together over a year ago.
Here is The Thing's face. I was very worried about how rock would be translated by glass, but I think he is a real success. It's shiny, but still fragmented enough to look like crumbly granite. I thought I would hate working on The Thing, but I actually really liked it; the black outlines look sharp and the orange is bright and "pops."
The other major worry: how would the speech bubbles look? I think they turned out fairly well. I used Delorean Gray (why Delorean?) grout, which is a dove gray sort of color, so it contrasts just a bit with the white glass but the difference isn't too jarring.

OK: It took about 19 months, cost about $650 ($100 for the sheet of plexiglass; about $500 for glass; $10 for grout; probably $15 for Weldbond glue; maybe $10 for wood frame and hardware; $15 for color copying of original comic page). Hmmm. Was it worth it? Well, I would do it again but I won't do it again. Though I was looking at the cover of a Hellboy comic and that definitely got me thinking about a REALLY big mosaic...10' by 10' maybe???

New Year Updates

These are projects I completed some time ago but haven't gotten around to posting. This was the nautilus shell mentioned earlier. I finished making it in June or July and it was fired in August, but I didn't get around to glazing it until early December. This was in part because I hadn't decided what glaze I wanted to use but also because I hate glazing at was putting it off as long as possible.

Here is a closeup of the inside. Everyone who sees this asks, "What are you going to do with it?" I think that is a weird question. I'm not going to do anything with it. (Someone at the FIA suggested that I use it as a planter outside during the summer. Huh?)

It's hard to get myself to work on The Thing during the winter because the basement is SO COLD. (I need to convince everyone I live with to move into the basement so that I can work on the mosaics upstairs.) But I have (slowly) been getting some work done. I am ALMOST to the point of being very, very sick of working on the background.

And, just to show that I do still knit, here is the latest attempt to make a small sweater for someone who can't wear anything itchy. All past attempts have failed (either because I had miscalculated and the sweater ended up being too small or because he had grown by the time I finished). Ever hopeful...