Where the Leaves Meet

Lying on the  forest floor looking up at the tops of the trees, the sun shining through fresh green leaves was the inspiration behind this piece.

I made several colour drawings using the same design, however I struggled with the green, finding the right shade and how to work it into the design without it looking like a football! So I went with  sunset colours and the trees in silhouette. Perhaps a bit wintery, but maybe I’ll work out a way using green later.

The mosaic is for our next exhibition at Somerset Crafts  – For All the Trees in the Woods.

I made a fairly detailed drawing

I wanted to use smalti for the orange and red sky and black ceramic for the trees, and as there was quite a difference in the heights of the materials, I decided to make it indirect to obtain a flat surface to the mosaic. As the design is quite symmetrical I don’t think a textured surface using the direct method would be so effective.

Here the mosaic is indirect on brown paper:

I wanted to make the mosaic suitable for display outdoors as well as indoors to give the  buyer more choice so I used a cement backer board to install the mosaic onto. Before cementing the mosaic to the board,  I fixed galvanised wire through the board so the mosaic can be hung.

The next day I soaked off the paper:

And grouted with a dark grey grout :

To finish I grouted around the edge of the mosaic and painted the back of the board black.

The finished mosaic:

For all the Trees in the Woods runs from 1 -30 June at Somerset Crafts. We are open every day from 10am – 5pm.

Come see us soon

🙂