Well Owl Be Damned

This picture is one my son took while hiking in New Hampshire last week. I had been looking at pictures of sunsets and sunrises for several days while pondering my next mosaic, so this seemed fortuitous. I decided to use it as a basis, although I have several other photos to pull from as well.



After pulling together a composition from those photos, here’s what I ended up with:


The substrate is 13” x 24”. So yes, I’m insane for attempting an owl on that scale.


It’s too soon to tell if it will be ok or not, but I will say that I have just used the smallest piece of glass I have EVER cut. (Beads don’t count!) It’s 5mm x 3mm.

Technorati Tags: sunrise,sunset,owl,mountain,pine tree,mosaic,glass

Mulberry Wine

My latest piece, Mulberry Wine, is finished.

12” x 12” smalti, stained glass and vitreous on MDF. $850
Because I have missed writing short stories, I thought a good way to get back into it is to write one for each mosaic I finish. If you’d like to read the story I wrote for this one, please visit my writing blog A Modern Dilemma.
I also did a quick little video about using the different colors of grout in mosaic. It seems that YouTube has changed their embed format and Blogger no longer recognizes it, so you can click this link to view it on YouTube -  https://youtu.be/HbglX9HQadU
Have a great week!

Technorati Tags: glass,mosaic,poppy,purple,Mulberry Wine,A Modern Dilemma,YouTube,video,grout

Almost done with…..uh…this thing.

The glass is done on the purple poppy. I can’t believe I don’t have a title for this yet! I usually have a title within a couple days of starting a piece, sometimes before I even begin. I’m open to suggestions if you feel like chiming in.

Had a studio visit from a lovely couple – they are artists from the NYC area looking to relocate in Asheville. She is an oil painter and he is a mosaic artist, so they came looking for me to connect with!   ~*happy dance*~   They came in and said “we’re looking for the mosaic artist” while waving the RADA Studio Guide. It’s a nice feeling when you get to see proof that your advertising dollars weren’t wasted!

Technorati Tags: purple,poppy,mosaic,glass,art,NYC,mosaic artist,studio

Arts Adventure Saturday!

After reworking several bits of the poppy, I finally finished the flower. I wish I could have had the whole mosaic done by this weekend (you have the Riverview Station Arts Adventure on your calendar, don’t you?) but it’s obviously not happening.
Speaking of the Arts Adventure, I will be in the studio from 11 – 5 (from 10 – 11 I’ll be at the information booth in front of the building) so PLEASE stop in and see me! At 1:00 I will be discussing how to take your mosaics from flat to fabulous – this is an outline of a workshop I’m developing.


In addition to my original mosaics and prints, there is a new addition to the studio: Greg Petropoulos – Paint Misbehavin’. Come see Greg’s atmospheric landscape paintings – works that draw you in and make you want to see what’s down the road or over the hill.

                                 Ewes Lookin’ at Me



His other body of work is paintings of whimsical wordplay –  an “egg”ceptional collection of surrealism.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Unidentified Frying Object
Also, don’t forget to check out my Etsy shop – framed and unframed prints available as well as original mosaics!

Technorati Tags: Riverview Station Arts Adventure,poppy,mosaic,glass,purple,paint misbehavin,Greg Petropoulos,Etsy

Getting ready for Studio Stroll May 9-10

Finally working on the pink dogwoods again, after a visit to New England to visit my son and daughter-in-law and to see the Boston Red Sox home opener. Our weather was fabulous for the trip and we walked all over Boston twice, and Portland, Maine once.

But now I want to hurry up and finish this! I need something on the walls in the studio for Studio Stroll. On our trip I took two pieces to The Kalled Gallery in Wolfeboro, NH, and about a month ago I took one to the Abbington Green Bed and Breakfast here in Asheville for their second floor gallery. That doesn’t leave much in the studio! Especially since Bellafiore is currently in Charlotte at Ciel Gallery until this weekend (BTW – I don’t think I mentioned here that it won Best of Show at their Back to the Garden national juried exhibit!). 
Studio Stroll is two and a half weeks away, and I have a lot of stuff going on outside the studio between now and then. This one is 12” x 12” so hopefully I can finish it this week, then get another little one done before Studio Stroll.
Oy.
Why do I do this to myself?

Technorati Tags: April,Studio Stroll,Kalled Gallery,Abbington Green Bed and Breakfast,Ciel Gallery

Still life with lemons

I have been sick for the last week, and soon I’ll have the energy to write a catch-up post to let you know what’s on tap for the near future, but in the meantime: it’s finally finished. This is probably not the final photo, but it’s the best I could manage today.

Still Life with Lemons, © Lee Ann Petropoulos 2015
This piece was an experiment, and as with most experiments, aspects of it turned out better than I had hoped for, and others were disappointing. It was a good learning experience though.

Technorati Tags: glass,mosaic,still life with lemons,wine bottle,basket

Exhibit news and progress pic

I have been working on several things at once over the last couple of months, and while I’ve been working on my current mosaic, it’s been one of those “little bit here, little bit there” sort of things. The progress was so minimal each time that I didn’t bother posting pics because you’d probably think it looked the same as the last one.
Now I have a substantial bit done and I look up and behold – 3 weeks have gone by! Yikes. I haven’t been a slacker, exactly, I just have been focusing my efforts in too many directions at once.
At any rate, here is where I stand on the current piece:

I had no intention of using red for the background, but I put in several square inches of the planned greenish tan and hated it. So all of that had to be scraped off and I started over with red. I do like it, but I’m not sure how it will look once grouted. I always hold my breath til it’s done.
I would be tickled pink to have the whole thing finished, grout and all, by Saturday afternoon. Hm. Maybe.
And in other news:
Bellafiore has been accepted into the juried exhibit Back to the Garden at Ciel Gallery in Charlotte, NC. The exhibit runs from Friday April 3 through April 24. The opening reception is Friday, April 3 from 6:00 – 9:00 pm at Ciel Gallery, 128 E. Park Ave, Charlotte, NC. Would love to see you there – they always put on a fine production!

Technorati Tags: Bellafiore,Still Life with Lemons,exhibits,Ciel Gallery,mosaic,art,glass

OK. So I cheated a little.

Today’s goal was to get the background finished up to the upper right corner.
I made it.
It totally counts.
Off my back.

Technorati Tags: mosaic,glass,calla lilies,The Three Graces

Finnegan, begin again.

Started a new piece today – 3 white calla lilies. This one is 18” square, so it will be a nice, manageable size after the monster I just finished (which, by the way, I don’t have good photos of yet – soon).

While planning this one last week, my thought was to create 3 stark white blossoms on a dark but intensely-colored background. Already I have run off the rails. I just couldn’t resist some dramatic shading for depth. I really don’t want a flat-looking calla, anyway, now do I? Unfortunately, the light colored violet glass doesn’t register well in this photo. It’s much prettier in person.

Part of the problem is that my Adobe Photoshop Elements program is stonewalling me, and I had to use a poor substitute to edit it. Oh well, it’s always something….

Gah! There’s MORE?!?!

I was so content – I had accomplished a certain amount of organization and was inordinately pleased with myself.  I needed a way to store and organize bits of stained glass that had been cut from sheets.  I spent the morning searching for a storage system, and found a 39 drawer storage cabinet (to add to the 22 drawer cabinet I already had) and spent the afternoon filling it up, and gluing a small bit of the glass to the fronts of the drawers.

I have exactly 4 drawers to spare and those are all larger ones.  Not much room for expansion, but it’s a good start.
The sheets and larger leftover bits are (and have been all along) stored in plastic milk crates set on their sides.
For about 4 years I have been taking all those small bits and storing them in plastic cups, stacked in a small, antique wooden chocolate box on top of the milk crates.  The stacks had begun to look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.
So while writing this blog post I thought “I should take a picture of the milk crates and the now empty wooden box”. 

And much to my dismay, I THEN noticed the brown plastic grocery sack by the wooden box.  Guess what’s in it?  GAH.

In case you wondered, that’s oregano drying in bundles hanging from that shelf.  I’m not very organized with herb storage either.
But I reached a good point in the current mosaic – so here’s the most recent picture:

Have a great weekend!

Technorati Tags: storage,stained glass,mosaic,wine,pear,fabric folds

Unfurled mosaic mural beginnings

I mentioned on my Faceboook page the mosaic mural I’m participating in – Unfurled designed by Lin Schorr Mixed Media Mosaics – and I see that I never mentioned it here!  Huh.  I have tried so hard to pull myself together and get more organized about sharing information, but I have reverted to my scatterbrained ways. 
Anyway, here is the design Lin came up with, which is being divvied up among something like 50 artists.  The completed design will be 8’ tall by 13’ wide.

Currently, artists (myself included) are working on the section on the left.  I am assigned the flower petal on the far left.  The color scheme for the petals is to be pink/tangerine/yellow. 
Searching for inspiration, I kept coming back to look at the images I have collected over the years of the tulips, from centuries past and modern day, that have very pronounced striping.  I have been fascinated with the tulips that caused a major financial panic in Europe in the 1600s – as much for the bizarre behavior they inspired as for the flowers themselves.  Tulips were introduced to Europe in the century before, but in Holland an industry developed around their cultivation which produced a bubble like the dot com bubble or the housing bubble, although on an even more ridiculous scale!   


At the height of the mania, the Viceroy tulip at right apparently sold for 3,000 – 4,500 guilders.  A skilled craftsman, by contrast, only earned 300 guilders per year.   

I love these stripes,  but I was concerned about being too literal with the design.  In part because Lin has come up with an overall design that looks to me very Jacobean (click here to see some examples from the web), although the project information says it is Art-Nouveau inspired.  I can see that influence too.  Both are very stylized botanicals with lots of curves.  I wanted to be sure to incorporate lots of curviness because of that (and because I want to, dammit).  So here is the beginning of the petal:

And because of my fear of commitment, I have only very lightly sketched in a guide with pencil.  Many of the artists have added bold black marker guidelines to follow, but what if I change my mind?!?!?!  I tend to find that I like the finished piece better when it evolves organically anyway, so I’ll just let it flow and see what we end up with.
I plan to do the pinks first, then fill in with the yellow and oranges, but I couldn’t resist popping some in just to get a feel for how it would look.

Technorati Tags: Unfurled,mosaic mural,Lin Schorr Mixed Media Mosaics,petal,tulips,tulip mania,Art Nouveau,Jacobean

Oh Boy!!!

It’s so exciting when something I attempt works out as well or better than I had hoped!  I’m diggin’ the flower centers. 

I used this technique once before on Farmer’s Market, so I guess it’s not as big a surprise as all that, but I like the way it looks even better on this piece than on the last.  I cut black glass rods approximately 3/8” to 1/2” long and embedded them upright in black tinted thinset.

And here’s a detail shot of the flower centers:

Technorati Tags: Bellafiore,black eyed susans,glass rods

Another doh! moment

Wow.  What a difficult thing it has been to get back to work in the studio after the holidays!  In part, because the two things that I have started are crap.  They might be saved, somehow, someday.  But as they stand I hate them.  Not hate….intensely dislike?  Whatever.
Today I started on a large project that I prepped ages ago.  In fact, I was trying to remember exactly how long it had been.  And I can’t.  That’s how long it was.  At least 2 years, maybe 2 1/2.
I have been staring at it crosswise for a couple of weeks now, trying to decide whether the time was ripe to give it a go.  I have been especially hesitant because of the two projects I mentioned above – gives the old confidence a kick in the ribs to have two projects going at once, and both of them rubbish.  So maybe I should wait?
I decided that maybe what I needed was to jump in.  So I end up with a third lemon, so what?  What’s one more?
Anyway, I placed a couple of orders, but I CAN’T WAIT.  I know I’ve told you many times that patience hates me.  So I started with what I had on hand.




Aaanndd…… dummy.  I should have waited, because I put some glass in that was definitely too dark.  That will have to come out and be replaced when the orders come in.  How old do you have to be to learn this damn lesson?!?




The photo I’m working from was taken several years ago in my gardens in New Hampshire.  I think it’s the coolest photo because I have no idea how the colors came out like they did.  This photo is unretouched:


These rudbeckias were in the shade of the house, but the sun was still high in the sky when I took the pic.  I have no idea why the green foliage turned out blue, but I loved it.  I used this as my logo for my garden design business Bellafiore Gardens.

Technorati Tags: rudbeckias,Bellafiore Gardens,mosaic,glass

Because you need a pretty picture.

Well aren’t I having a perfectly awful time keeping up with this blog? There are a number of things percolating that I don’t feel free to discuss here just yet, so I decided to find you some amazing art from other sources to share.  So here you go – Simon Bull, whose colors and forms astound me.   Check out his entire site, which is crammed full of luscious pictures – but be prepared to spend an afternoon browsing them. http://www.bullart.com.

Ode to Joy Simon Bull

And an interesting point here – I started this blog as a way to keep an art journal.  I knew I wouldn’t write anything out by hand, or if I did I’d probably truncate it beyond usefulness because I’m lazy.  Typing is no effort, so I put it here.  I didn’t really promote it, I didn’t particularly care if anyone else read it, I was just trying to keep a record for my own use of what I had done, what worked, and what failed flamboyantly.  As a result, whatever was affecting my art could be recorded here.  Now……well, not so much. 
But here is something I can tell you now – my book will be ready soon!  I’m sending the proofs to the fabulous Kath Jones this week – she’s going to proofread it for me, give me a critique, and then it will be ready to go to print.  I’m really excited about this, I think you’ll like the collection of pieces, and the in-progress shots with backstory on the pieces.
Also, I have finished the mosaic of the bee, entitled Joy.  This piece is not for sale at the moment – I will be entering it in the Mosaic Arts International exhibit (the exhibit associated with the annual Society of American Mosaic Artists conference), so I’ll be waiting to hear whether it’s accepted before putting a price on it.  I have never entered before, because I always felt sure it would be a waste of my entry fee (which at $45 is just a little on the steep side).  This year I have decided to take the risk and hope for the best.  Wish me luck!

Technorati Tags: Simon Bull,Ode to Joy,Joy,bumble bee,SAMA,MAI

Fixing problems on the fly

Have you run into a problem with a mosaic where a section just wasn’t going quite the way you thought it ought to?  I have found that it’s possible to fix almost anything before you grout.  In fact, it can be done after grouting too, but it’s soooo much easier if you catch it before that point!  I ran into a bit of a problem with the background on the current project.  I thought it would be useful to show you how I identified it and then how I corrected it. 
First of all, it’s important to remember to step back from the mosaic frequently and look at it from a distance.  Sometimes it looks quite a bit different from a distance than it does up close, and this gives you a good sense of perspective on it.  You’ve seen painters step back from a canvas and sometimes squint at it?  It’s the same principle.  I have also found that taking a photo of it can identify problems that I don’t notice in person.
Here’s the pre-fix photo of the whole thing:

Just above the bee and to the right of it you’ll see a dark green section.  I want shadows in the foliage to indicate depth, but that was too dark for the part of the foliage near the sky.   You’ll notice that it is as dark as the shadow near the base.  Here’s a close up of that section before I fixed it:



I decided that rather than trying to remove the whole section and start over, I would just randomly take out several of the darkest pieces and replace them with light greens.  That would give the impression of lightening the whole section.




I used the dental pick to pry out several pieces, leaving a few darker ones to maintain the impression of shadow.  New light green pieces were cut and filled in, and here is the result:



The difference is subtle, but I think it might be enough.  When the rest of the glass is filled in I’ll go back and reevaluate – I might change out a few more, particularly the darker ones right next to the flower. 
It’s never too late to make a change – and when you put this many hours into a piece, you want to be sure to be happy with it when you’re done!  Don’t hesitate to make those changes!

Technorati Tags: mosaic,bumble bee,adjustments,glass

The Great Glue Fiasco update

I removed all the tempered glass over the tarnished gold leaf, scraped up the gold leaf and replaced it.  My intention was to try Weldbond, but fortunately, Linda Smith reminded me of a discussion on MAO (MosaicArtists.org) that I had read awhile back but completely forgotten.  It suggested that the water content of Weldbond might be a problem also.  So I tested it on a scrap of primed MDF and sure enough, it darkened the gold leaf.  Next test, DAP and Lexel silicone adhesives:

It looks like either of them will be fine. 
*whew*

Technorati Tags: dragonflies,mosaic,gold leaf

A ‘smashing’ good way to spend a Saturday…

The before, an 18” x 24” piece of tempered glass:

I bought a full piece rather than scavenging for tempered that was already broken.  Even though you can often get it for free, it’s likely to be broken into such small bits that it’s hard to use if you have a large area to cover.  And I don’t want to cover too much of the gold and silver leaf with grout, so I want some medium sized pieces.
And then the after:

Smacked with a hammer on the edge, it breaks beautifully all at once.  I think it’s so cool that you can tell from the break pattern exactly where I hit it.
Rather than trying to transport the whole thing (a piece that size on cardboard is likely to end up on the floor on the way),  I just took part of it on a separate piece of cardboard to the work table.

My friend Janet Skinner stopped in and took some pictures of me working on placing the tempered glass:

Technorati Tags: dragonflies,mosaic,tempered glass

This is really not that interesting. Really.

It’s coming along…..I’d like to have accomplished more in the 12 days since I started it, but I do, after all, have a gallery to take care of.  And in the course of those 12 days I staged an art exhibit opening and compiled a show catalog, so I guess I should cut myself some slack. 

After all the glue and thinset is dry, I will go back in and draw in some more grass (or reeds, whatever you want to call that).  I know that sounds counterintuitive, but it can be so hard to predict what it will look like after you apply some glass.  I like to put in the most important things first, then go back and fill in.  I often won’t do any more drawing at this point, I’ll just ad lib it, but this time I want to be sure to get a nice solid bottom to it, and bring the side edges up a bit so that it sort of frames the picture.  So I think it’s a good idea to sketch in some kind of guidelines.  And then……..
Time to scrounge up some tempered glass! 

Technorati Tags: dragonflies,tempered glass

I consider it my duty to make you feel better about yourself.

Today’s edition:  crappy photo #1,245


So obviously, I’m not going for realism here.  In fact, I’m totally ‘winging’ it. 

Hahahahaha

*I need a vacation*

Technorati Tags: dragonflies,mosaic,vacation

Abandonment issues…..

Not me…..…my art.  Yes, I’ve done it again.
I don’t like working with smalti.  I keep telling myself it’s because I don’t have enough experience with it. I LOVE the look of it, but I think I don’t love the look enough to gain the experience to stop hating it.  Confusing, I know, but that’s just the way it is.
So I started something else.  I’m sure I’ll go back to the smalti project (Sugar Creek) eventually, but for now….

…..dragonflies are calling my name.  Teasing me with memories of summer evenings, of watching them flit around the patio, changing direction almost as quickly as I can with my artwork.