Sunday, June 26, 2011

Triceratops Mosaic..but not really*

Where has the past year gone? I have no idea. I haven't been taking any art classes at the Flint Institute of Arts, I know that--perhaps that lack is the reason I slipped into a state of dullness. I started this mosaic last summer (sigh) and had every intention of finishing it during the winter but, as I had written before, working in the basement on mosaics in winter is dull, uninspiring and, well, cold. This is not for me. I am not, particularly, a dinosaur fanatic. But I live with a former dinosaur fanatic and a current fanatic who is allergic to wool and therefore cannot receive any knitted goods (and refuses all wool substitutes I think out of sheer bloody-mindedness). So, when woolens and woolen substitutes won't do, a dinosaur mosaic is in order, or so I hope.
The glass is about 3' by 3' tempered glass, so it is really strong but, therefore, really heavy.  The story behind the glass is really strange.  My FIA connection was given 8 or 9 panels, most 3' by 3', but some 2' by 5' and some even larger.  A couple had special ordered all the pieces for a bathroom (who has that many windows in one bathroom?!?) and had dark green bits etched into some patches and frosted bits etched into other bits.  Apparently the person preparing the glass had warned them that it would look weird, but they insisted.  Then, once it arrived, they hated it.  It sat in their basement for years (it was wrapped in 10 year old newspaper when I picked it up, yellowed and brittle) until they couldn't stand looking at their folly anymore.  In a fit of pique they dropped the whole heap off at the FIA, in the main office, and went off.  [Apparently that happens quite regularly there--like hospitals finding babies in garbage dumpsters, the FIA finds everyone's ex-hobby and craft remains on their doorsteps with no note attached, and dried out or bits broken.]  Well, the pieces didn't give me any sense of shame or regret so I took three panels home and set to work.  I have come to think that dinosaurs have great artistic potential that is grossly underexplored.  There is simply no reason to represent them in drab greens and grays, as they usually are.  I wanted to express hugeness, strangeness yet nothing terrifying.  I didn't want a slathering, bloody-toothed tyranosaurus -rex staring out at us for decades to come.
It was quite fun to work on this guy (or gal--s/he hasn't been given an identity yet).  It was fun just picking out a crazy color scheme, like you would see with parrots.  But now I have to deal with the background, and I am a bit stuck.  I want to keep it simple, so it doesn't overwhelm the subject.  But I also don't want it boring.  I was thinking of very dark, browns and black, and then having a very complex pattern of leaves or abstract swirls which would mainly show up in the grout.  But now I am thinking of letting strips of pink and wine/cranberry pipe through the brown  to give it some zing.  Here is the cranberry/pink/brown/black.
Here is just the browns and black.  Hmm.  It's a poser.
Mainly, I just want to get the issue settled because once I do, it won't take that long to get done as background is fairly straightforward and I JUST WANT TO GET IT DONE. 

*People who claim to know tell me that triceratops are not a distinct kind of dinosaur but simply baby torosaurs.  So what is this--is it a torosaurus, no-longer baby triceratops or something else?  What I do know is that I dug through a giant tub of plastic toys in our house, found the funkiest looking beastie, set up a photo shoot, took various shots of it in various poses, enlarged them MANY times over, and then went to work from there.