The Richest of Fare: Mosaic Motivation

Just a few minutes ago, I was sitting on the back porch, snipping squares of glass for our Mosaic Timeline Project. The snipping of the glass is not my favorite part of the project, but it's fairly important. Not only do you need to reduce the larger pieces of glass that you sometimes buy, but I have also found that it is good to cut the small, uniform squares of glass into more random shapes. If you provide the kids with squares, some of them tend to use the squares on all manner of shapes - even covering small, more detailed shapes with one square of glass...kind of like this:

I call this picture "Abraham with Square Hands". Sometimes you have to challenge the kids to use the smaller pieces to make more of a - not square shape.

As I result, I try to snip all of my pieces this way. But it is kind of boring, and I was not enjoying it so much today.

But then I got some pictures from my friend Cathy. Cathy is the person who dreamed up and started our mosaic projects back in Morgantown, and is the one who taught me everything I know today about mosaics. She sent me some pictures of some a mosaic timeline that they are working on there about the life of Jesus.

Cathy is more into "mixed media" mosaics than I am, which simply defined is that she really likes pieces of the art to stick out in some form. I am more a fan of "flat" mosaics, but I still think what they have done is wonderful. Here are some pictures. They are taken with her iPhone and some are a little blurry, but you can still see that they are fantastic:

Garden of Gethsemane

Pilate washing his hands - ungrouted - I think the scrolls and the marble pieces on the wall in the background are an especially nice touch (not to mention the sandals).

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