What could be more beautiful for a mosaicista in the summer than working on a mosaic made of blues and greens that form a foaming sea and wild waves with beautiful white spray?
I am helping Emilie Baudrais again, in her studio Babylon Mosaic, this time with her commission of 12 mosaics for a church in Sardinia. My first theme from the Old Testament: Moses, who splits the sea, to bring the Israelites out of the hands of the Egyptians.
All the designs for the mosaics were made by Emilie. As they are floor mosaics but we are working in direct technique, it requires high precision. We cut the pre-divided cubes and place them so that we form a flat surface that doesn’t have to be ground afterwards.
I love to work on this mosaic. But after all the hours in the studio I also longed for jumping into real waves. So I spent some days on the Atlantic, which is about an hour from here.
It was so great to wash my skin from all the cement and dust from the last months and gather some energy for the next projects to come.
Great!
How is made the base?
In Joy!
Hey Sophie, as base we use Wedi, a building board that is really stable and lightweight and can be used for mosaics in exteriors also. http://www.wedi.de/en/products/
It is kind of expensive but worth the price.
Hi Miriam,
I love your mosaic work, at Sea, beautiful.
I’m just getting into mosaic art, I like the contemporary designs.
Where is the best and most economical store to buy tesserae, the small cube like stones in your “At Sea” mosaic piece? FYI, I live in California, bay area, but will probably buy the tesserae online, even though shipping costs are expensive.
Thank you,
Gary
Miriam,
Please reply to my questions. As I mentioned, I’m having the hardest time finding reasonably priced marble or granite tiles online. Which is better, marble? 3/8″ is the most common height?
I’m anxious and excited to get into doing stone mosaics, it’s beautiful.
Thank you, Gary
Hey Gary,
thank you for your comments! I have just returned from France where I had been working on a second mosaic of that kind. So sorry if I didn’t find the time to answer more quickly. The tesserae we have been using were shipped from Mosaici Moruzzi in Italy, but I am not sure they also ship to US. However you can ask them or find someone who works with marble and ask them to cut the marble into cubes of ca. 1 x 1 cm. The right measure depends on your project though and the dimensions of the tesserae foreseen for it. With that in mind we create the flow of a mosaic (the andamenti). What you also can do is use bigger pieces of marble and cut them to the dimensions you want to have. Then it will be difficult to get the shiny side of the tesserae on the top though. But also this depends on the effect you prefer to have afterwards. I do prefer the natural, inner parts of the mosaic.
Hope my answer helped a bit. In the tutorial section you will find helpful articles on how to cut and prepare your work. Enjoy!!
Miriam