Mosaic Tabletop

I finally grouted my mandala on Saturday.  I used gray grout, but I wish I had grouted darker.  However, I am pleased with the combination of aqua, blue and green though I wish I scouted for more mirror for the perimeter of the table.  Still it's all learning and all good and still attractive.  On to the next mandala!

Creativity as Problem-Solving

On Saturday, I joined my sister-in-law at Fireclay Tile in San Jose, California for Delaine Hackney's Pet Portraiture class. I had already made 3 pet portraits in Delaine's class, and so I asked if I could bring my own substrate and create a mandala instead. In order for me to "do something creative every day," I have to undertake a project. And so I found a three-amoeba-looking spiral pattern and started outlining one of the protozoans in aqua blue glass. However, I ran out of that hue in that particular kind of glass and needed to figure out how to change-up and improvise with other glass that I have. I had run to the Aanraku Glass Studio in San Mateo to see what kind of scrap stained glass I could find, but what I found is not going to be a perfect color match to the glass I already glued down. Plus I also needed to figure out what other two colors I was going to coordinate with the tesserae I had already laid down. I threw on top of my mandala another color I was considering: chartreuse. I'll probably go with that particular green, but what will be the other color? Sapphire blue? Orange? I initially thought of including beads and cabochons and chunks of colored glass to add texture to my cosmic circle, but this round piece of plywood is actually a tabletop and will probably not be wall art. It will probably end up as a side table alongside my easy chair for setting cups of teas, books and a lamp, and so it has to have as flat a surface as possible for other pretty objects. I was inspired by a mosaic sunburst created by Antoni Gaudi at his Park Güell in Barcelona, (to where I totally want to sojourn--http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/albums-en/gaudi-park-guell/pages/antoni-gaudi-park-guell-01_jpg.html). Gaudi's sunburst is gorgeously color-splotchy imperfect and I'm hoping my own lack of skill with incorporating opus regulatum (work that is regular but perhaps a bit too predictable) into my mosaic will likewise be irregularly attractive and still convey andamento (or pattern).