I am delighted to present a guest post (my first) by award winning Canadian mosaicist Julie Sperling about using thinset for mosaics.
Julie’s work stands apart in being both fiercely beautiful and intelligently polemical. In her hands mosaics move out of the decorative realm and into a hybrid world where art meets politics meets activism.
Using a wide range of tesserae and found objects from the traditional (smalti and limestone) to the unusual (grafiiti paint layers) and the bizarre (flue damper), Julie explores the subject of climate change and our human response to it through mosaics in a way which make your heart sing and your thoughts linger.
How does she do it? you ask. I have often wondered. No one (probably least of all Julie) could precisely explain the process by which she interweaves her materials with the subject matter to create works of art. But Julie’s work is impressive on many levels, including its sheer technical virtuosity.
In many of her mosaics the substrate is part of the piece rather than just a surface to be mosaicked. It’s a pause, a space, a frame, it allows her to open the work up to infinite suggestions, to make emphases, to change direction and to add permutations and explorations both on and beyond the ‘canvas’.
See how she does it here in Heat (Each Decade Hotter Than The Last) where the central ‘graph’ is separated by a perfectly balanced border of thinset:
Thinset (or mortar) isn’t an attractive word. Nor, in most people’s books, is it the most appealing aspect of mosaics. But in this blog post about using thinset for mosaics, Julie shows us how this most mundane of substances can be used to create stunning effects. Many thanks Julie!
Julie’s Tutorial: Using Thinset for Mosaics
First, my go-to implements for the task: an array of paintbrushes, spatulas, and palette knives, as well as water and a rag. And don’t think I only use the brush/blade end! Anything is fair game, including fingers.
Now, if you want to save yourself work, make sure your initial bed of thinset is as smooth as you can make it. Just like taking a good photograph to start will save you time and frustration in post-production, touching up a smoothish surface is much easier than trying to fix an area riddled with bumps and ridges and lumps later on. A pass or two with a clean palette knife (wiped with a damp cloth) will make your life much easier. Admittedly, though, I usually skip this part or, at best, make a half-hearted attempt to get a nice smooth bed. Why? Because I’m not really great at using a palette knife and because fixing it later doesn’t particularly bug me.
Smooth thinset in between lines and tesserae
When I weave my lines, I like the thinset to be smooth, especially where there’s more open space. I have no reason for this other than personal preference. Once I set my tesserae into the thinset, I leave them for a bit before attempting to go in with my various implements to smooth it out. I’ve found it’s far easier to work with the thinset once it has set up a bit. It’s less sticky and far more compliant. I just pat it / brush it as best I can, mostly with a dry brush or other tool. Sometimes, I use the blunt end of a tool).
Sometimes the thinset dries shiny and smooth. I don’t particularly care for this look, so I will take a slightly thinner mix of thinset at the very end (when I’m cleaning up the background) and just dab it into the small spaces, being very careful not to get any on the tesserae.
Smooth thinset as the background
This step is for the very end. I spread my thinset on the background, usually in stages. Doing one side at a time works well for me. I try not to put it on too thick because then it just squishes around when I try to smooth it with my brush. Alternatively, I don’t want it to be too thin because then the roughness of the substrate comes through.
Then I take a foam brush, wet it with water, and squeeze the excess out with my cloth so the brush is just damp. This is very important, because if your brush is too wet you risk getting white splotches on your thinset once it dries.
I lightly brush the thinset with my damp brush to smooth it out, taking care to keep my brush strokes going in the same direction. I find that shorter, quicker strokes work better for me. When too much thinset accumulates on my brush, I rinse it, wring it out in my cloth, and keep going.
Sometimes I have to switch to a smaller brush to work closer to the tesserae. But normally I can make it work by angling my foam brush to follow the curves of the outer tesserae.
And that’s it! It really all boils down to working as neatly as you can from the start. To save yourself the headaches later on, making sure your brush isn’t too wet, and being patient.