I’ve been thinking a lot about andamento recently, about the lines of tesserae from which all, or almost all, mosaic creativity springs. Straight lines, curved ones, long drawn out tapering ones, lines which twist and writhe, ones laid for emphasis, others to distract attention. Without lines a mosaic is not …
The Nature of Mosaics: A New Theory About What Makes Mosaics Different. I have a new theory about the nature of mosaics. Hold on, stop right there. Don’t flick forward quite so fast. This theory has been bobbing around in the back of my mind for some time and I …
Intuitive Andamento: a new way of working. I was ready for a shake up. I needed, nay, craved, to press the mosaic ‘refresh’ button. After years of making mosaics which, let’s face it, had a certain Helen-y look, I felt I needed to break free; to become the mosaic equivalent …
One must spoil as many canvases as one succeeds with. (Vincent van Gogh) It’s confession time. I am going to be writing about making mosaic mistakes and most of them will be mine. It’s not an easy thing to do. It makes me squirm. I dont like to think of …
You know what it’s like. I know you know. That moment when you open the oven and find your lovingly prepared cake has failed to rise, peer into the washing machine to discover the white wash has turned an alarming shade of pink, or herd a bunch of fractious children up a hill in the sizzling …
How many tesserae does it take? There we all were sitting around a day or two before the wedding chatting about this and that. We might have been doing our toes at that particular juncture or pouring out another bottle of wine as we happily anticipated the Scottish-Palestinian wedding on a Greek island. When …
