Gaudi bird – how to make a 3d mosaic

Detail from Antoni Gaudi's Parc Guell, Barcelona, Spain.
Detail from Antoni Gaudi’s Parc Guell, Barcelona, Spain.

Making a 3d mosaic – how to start

I cant believe that I fell for it again. It happens every time. I should know by now, but somehow I never learn. I thought I could rattle something off. I’d seen plenty of photos of Antoni Gaudi’s Parc Guell in Barcelona and thought it was all so easy. Just a few broken pots gaily slapped on and that I could rustle up a 3d mosaic over a morning or two. Helen, learn your lesson: mosaics AREN’T like that. You don’t rattle or slap or rustle with mosaics. They absorb and consume you and they also take far, far longer than you think.

After finishing a large mosaic that had taken weeks to make, I felt I deserved a little light relief. A friend was interested in making an outdoor water feature – a mosaicked cement bowl with a solar powered fountain – which I thought was a splendid idea and happily took on the task of seeing where such bowls were to be found. In the cement bowl shop I also happened to spy a cement pigeon, and blithely thought I’d conjure up a Gaudi-esque 3d mosaic bird as a practice run.

Cement pigeon ready to be transformed.
Cement pigeon ready to be transformed.

I had plenty of bits and pieces lying around from broken plates and mugs, plus glass beads and some millifiore so I was all set.

Miscellanenous materials for the Gaudi bird
Miscellaneous materials for the Gaudi bird

3d mosaic – the process

So here’s how it went – if you need any more details about the prepping, grouting and finishing processes then please refer to my tutorials on Making a Mosaic Trivet, Parts 1-4.

3d mosaic – the finished bird.

And here, after all that, is my bird. Gaudi? Hmmm, not quite, but if at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try again….

Gaudi bird - 3d mosaic completed
Gaudi bird – 3d mosaic completed