Fyrewurks » smalti

The Results of Smalti 101

Jennifer — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:41:00 +0000

Well – I may not have produced the world’s greatest modern mosaics, but I did end up with three little pieces of color and awkwardness that I like enough to display in my decor. Plus going to art class was really a nice segway from the office.

So here’s what I made – three tree-themed smalti mosaics (photos taken on my sister’s phone – memo to myself: get a purse at least large enough for my a digital camera):

The Beginnings of a Mosaic

Jennifer — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:08:19 +0000

I decided to figure out what mosaic I was going to do once I got to my 2nd class and saw the colored tiles that I had ordered up close and personal, and once I saw them I know what I wanted to do. (It was a little disconcerting to see that most everyone else already had their image drawn on their piece of wood, but in the end I decided just going with it would work best for me).

I’ve always loved all of the crafty creations that were in the movie The Science of Sleep, but there’s one in particular that I found really intriguing – the forest in a boat.

So I decided to do a single tree in a boat (possibly more if, come next class, I can squeeze them in with tiles and have it look OK) for this project.

I got my smalti tiles in – they’re so cool (as they should be at $50 for enough for one mosaic)!

Smalti mosaic tiles

I got my other supplies ready (WeldBond glue for the thinset, a wooden board, a tile cutter, and an artist knife):

Mosaic supplies

I laid the tiles out just to make sure I had enough to do the mosaic I wanted:

Mosaic tiles

After setting out all of the tiles like I wanted, I removed them and got started on the boat part:

The beginnings of a mosaic

Now I can’t wait to get back and work on it again – I could have stayed up all night finishing it!

SMALTI

Jennifer — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 05:10:27 +0000

My sister sent me a pic of some of the smalti tiles we chose from in our last class – as you can see, it’s much brighter and more colorful than the smalti used in Byzantine art:

Smalti mosaic tile

I chose lots of blues and greens – at the moment I thought something oceanic sounded cool… but then I thought that maybe I’d do an autumn-themed mosaic so I grabbed a few autumnal colors (I also thought they’d complement my oceanic colors if I decided to use them in that anyway). Then I grabbed some pink because – well – pink is just cute…. so now I’m debating between doing an ocean scene, maybe even a Mt. Fuji-esque picture, a fall mosaic, or something pop-y like cupcakes. OR, Hello Kitty riding on a Mt. Fuji wave… though somehow I doubt that I should start with something so complicated.

Smalti Italian Mosaics!

Jennifer — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 03:45:18 +0000

My sister had the fun idea for us to take an Italian mosaics class together and we just got out of the first class – I’m so excited! We’re using smalti for our mosaics in this class and I just love it! The tile is formed by mixing molten glass with metal oxides and it comes out as this cloudy looking tile – just beautiful! I (already) can’t imagine using anything else for my mosaics.

Many Byzantine mosaics like the following were made with smalti tiles and the tiles are either used as-is or covered with gold leaf:

Jesus Christ, a Byzantine mosaic in the interior of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey.

I ordered a bunch of colors and they should be coming in next week… now… to figure out the design!