how to and how not to mosaic

Major Mistake from last week: Being stuck in previous ideas and not taking time to look at new task with fresh eyes.

Photos above:
My latest mosaic commission was three dimensional, benches for a sports hall entrance. The method used then, successfully, was to shape inner forms of frigolite, cover them with a thin layer of glass fibre reinforced concrete and put the mosaic pieces on top. Light enough to handle and transport in place, strong enough to sit and kick on. More photos of the finished result here

This time I was totally stuck with the idea of concrete. Wish to make slab sections of mosaic ready to put up on the walls all at once (don't want to spend weeks and weeks in a cold and busy construction site but rather work peacefully in cosy studio).

I usually tape the pieces together on the front side, and get larger sections to handle. This doesn't work with the China pieces as they are not flat enough. That's why the need of slabs.

So, last week I spent a lot of time and energy making molds for very thin concrete slabs to glue them onto. Absolutely useless work, the thin concrete was forever stuck on the stone slab I used for mold, couldn't get it off even with litres of oil on the stone surface. Used kitchen foil with bad result too, hard to handle with lots of wrinkles.

After giving up this bad DIY project and thus giving room for a better idea, I went to buy 6mm plasterboards. Easy to cut for sections and easy to handle. A little thicker than I wanted but now the work runs smoothly again.

Photo mosaic sculptures, found via Sandra
In case you missed it: Konstepidemin new blog
Paula Lindblom was part of the Taking parts workshop, here and here