Weekend Mosaic workshop with Stone Art

I will be running a weekend mosaic workshop at my studio in Donabate, Co. Dublin the 23rd-24th of May.

Open to all levels of experience.

Learn a new skill and create a piece of art for your home or garden in the process.

If you have a larger project in mind, and need help getting started this workshop is a great way to get you on the right track.

What does the workshop involve?

Workshop will involve:

• Introduction to mosaicing materials and tools.
• Introduction to the design process.
• Looking at different mosaicing processes.
• Coming up with a design for your project.
• Creating your masterpiece.
• Introduction to grouts and grouting
• Grouting and finishing your work of art to take home with you.  

Workshop includes all materials needed. Teas & Coffees included. Bring a packed lunch.

Weekend workshop cost €180. Discounts available for group bookings. Limited spaces available. Booking essential. See bottom of page to book.

Subject to demand, open studio days can be arranged for students who wish to carry on working on their projects. €45 pp (use of workspace and tools only) materials not included.

Studio located 10 minutes from Dublin airport and just 5 minutes outside Donabate village. For those wishing to use public transport there is a train station in Donabate village and I am happy to come pick you up there and bring you to the studio if pre arranged.

Weekend workshop cost €180. Discounts available for group bookings. Limited spaces available. Booking essential. 

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The Family Tree Mosaic

As part of the sculptural outdoor classroom that I am working on at the moment for a school here in Dublin, I was asked to incorporate a tree somewhere into the design to represent the 'Family Tree'. The 'Family Tree' is a song which has come to symbolise the 'Croí na Scoile' (The heart of the school).

I was also asked to give the students a chance to have some input into the outdoor classroom so that they can make it their own (a very important part of the process for sure) 

My solution to this was to create a large stone mosaic of the tree into the wall of the structure and to then let the students paint the leaves of the tree on precut tiles.

Past pupils, staff, board and PTA members (past and present) received a leaf to design and paint.

Almost 100 leaf tiles were painted as well as another 70 square tiles that make up the border around the mosaic.

It was great to spend some time in the classroom with students and see the excitement about creating their very own piece of art that will remain part of the outdoor classroom for years to come.

Painting the leaf tiles in class

The finished leaf tiles painted by the students

Many many hours went into the making of the stone part of the mosaic, far more than anyone will ever know, but now that it is finished I know that it was all worth it. 

The roots of the tree

The border tiles that surround the mosaic spell out 'All different all equal' as well as its Irish translation 'Gach duine atá difriúil ach freisin cothrom'  

There is still lots to do before the outdoor classroom is complete with lots more exciting features and student involvement also, so I will get back to work now, and will post more about the outdoor classroom once it is completed.

Jeffrey Bale's Mosaic Pilgrimage, a labour of love, a labour of pebbles!

Lotus Medallion Patio in San Francisco

Many of you may already be familiar with the work of Jeffery Bale, but for those of you who aren’t, I feel the need to share his work with you. I am a big fan of mosaics. One of my favourite city to visit is Barcelona, mainly because of all the wonderful mosaics of Gaudi that decorate much of the city. I have even ventured to make a few mosaics myself upon occasion (see my blog post on making mosaics) but nothing as large, detailed or impressive as the mosaics of Jeffery.

Jeffery at work

For Jeffery Bale, gardens and stones are not just his passion and his livelihood, they are instilled in his blood, passed on through a family history of gardeners and geologists. Quite possibly on some kind of subconscious level, these family genetics helped pave the way for his future carer. Jeffery likes to think so anyway. It would also explain why he developed a passion for these traits at a very young age.

Following his passion for gardening, Jeffery graduated with a degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Oregon in 1981, but after a short stint working a desk job designing for a landscaping firm, Jeffery felt the need to get his hands dirty.

He spent the next few years experimenting in friends gardens and gaining onsite experience, before in 1987 deciding to set out on a sort of mosaic pilgrimage, to go and see the gardens of the Alhambra in Granada and ParqueGuell in Barcelona as the images of these places had mesmerized him back in college, and stayed with him long after.

Round step stone with marbles, Indonesian Turquoise, Red Montana Rainbow, Black Mexican Beach and center beach stone

Jeffery began his ‘mosaic pilgrimage’ travelling to Madrid in Spain  and then on to Lisbon, Portugal, and like any good pilgrimage, it didn’t take him long to have an epiphany.  Here, standing in a city encrusted in mosaics made from small hand split blocks of white limestone and black basalt,  every plaza and sidewalk had a different design, everywhere he went he was looking at marvellous decorative pavements, something he had never seen back home. So this was it. Jeffery Bale from of Eugene, Oregon, USA felt destined to return home to America to replace its concrete pavements with stones and jewels.

So when he returned home he set to work on a patio for his newly purchased home in N.E. Portland.  His design was inspired after reading the ‘Tao of Physics’ by Fritjof Capra.  Not really knowing the methods of construction in Spain, he developed his own technique, setting the pebbles in a bed of wet mortar.

From here Jeffery honed his mosaicing skills by creating mosaics whenever the opportunity arose, mainly making mosaics for friends and family.  It wasn’t until a few years later that he convinced a client in Northwest Portland to let him build a pebble mosaic patio for him, along with a mosaic path and parking strip pavements.  The patio is a 12 by 18 foot Persian Carpet. This patio would later be photographed by Alan Mandell and Jerry Harpur of England, being published several times, and even making the cover of Landscape Architecture Magazine in August of 2005.

The Persian Carpet

 Suddenly Jeffery was not just a garden designer anymore, he was bonafide pebble mosaic artist as well, meaning that he could frequently incorporate these lovely mosaics into many of his projects.

Parking Strip mosaic Mother giving birth with the moon in her hair

Looking at one of Jeffery’s mosaic creation, one can begin to appreciate the time and effort that must have been put in to create it. Each stone has been carefully placed by colour, shape and size to fit into these wonderful shapes and patterns. But what one might easily overlook is that every single stone in each mosaic has not only been laid by Jeffery, they have also been painstakingly picked by him. 

Jeffery carefully selecting stones in a big heap of Montana Rainbow  Pebble Mix 

 "I’ve spent a fair amount of my adult life gathering the materials needed to build these mosaics.  Each pebble is selected for shape and sorted by color, whether beach combing or sitting on piles of rainbow rock in a stone yard.  I have to look at every single one to discern whether it will fit amongst the thousands of it’s brethren."  Jeffery Bale 

'Council Ring’ fire pit. Most of the stone for this project was gathered from the beach below the property, giving it a strong connection to it’s setting.

Cyphers and Constellations in Love with a Woman, inspired by the paintings of Joan Miro 

One of my personal favorite pieces by Jeffery is actually the footpath below. It makes up part of a number of mosaics around one of his clients houses. The group of mosaics are inspired by the paintings of Spanish painter Joan Miro (including the mosaic 'Mother giving birth with the moon in her hair')

Molalla stone footpath with another mosaic inspired by Miro's work 

I love the simplicity of the footpath. The skilfully arranged Molalla flagstones are cut and tightly fitted together, with the gaps filled with pebble mosaic which connects to the other Miro inspired mosaics in the garden.  Jeff also cleverly incorporated gaps between the rectangle pads to allow for permeability in the pavement, and for the garden to flow through the work in planted lines.

 'The River of Life'

The ‘mosaic pilgrimage’ that Jeffery set out on back in 1987, is in fact one that he continues throughout his career. When ever the opportunity arises Jeffery sets off to get inspired by the different cultures and mosaics from around the world. 

Looking through his portfolio of work you can see much of what he has taken back home with him from socking in these different cultures.

The Moroccan inspired Sunken Garden

Jeffery has a wonderful blog that I recommend checking out. In his blog Jeffery documents his ‘mosaic pilgrimage’ sharing many of the wonderful mosaic sites, architecture, culture and mind blowing colours from around the world. http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com

Mosaic inspiration from Jeffery's blog

Moroccan inspired fire pit. The pit is built up of bands of pebble mosaic using black and gold Mexican beach pebbles, which are then capped with a band of eight pointed stars matching the other mosaics in the garden.  

Islamic Geometry in a small patio in one of Jeffery's gardens in Portland

Brazilian Carnival inspired mosaic parking strip

Lotus Step Stone Path.The lotus blossoms, alluding to a Buddhist Jataka Tale about Sidhartha Gautama being born, and having lotus blossoms spring from his footprints.

Full Moon Spiral Mosaic

There is much more amazing work by Jeffery that I was hoping to share with you, but as this post is starting to get quite long I will leave it at that. To see more information about Jeffery and more photos of his work check out his website http://www.jeffreygardens.com.

For a more complete and comprehensive look at Jeffery's work, I highly recommend getting a copy of his self-published book 'The Gardens of Jeffery Bale' This book along with other publications by Jeffery can be ordered online through the following link Books by Jeffery Bale

And don't forget to check out his wonderful blog http://jeffreygardens.blogspot.com.

Thanks to Jeffery Bale for his kind permission for the use of the photos and writings from his website and blog for this post. 

Making a mosaic

Click here to see a video of the building of this project

Here is a picture of a project I recently finished for an artist in West Cork. The mosaic in the center was actually a bit of an afterthought. The seating area was initially designed to have a fire pit in the center but later the client decided against the fire pit. I still wanted to have some sort of central feature, so I decided to put in a mosaic instead.

 I have been getting a lot of reaction to the mosaic I made for the center, I also have been getting some feedback from readers saying that they would like to see some more DIY projects posted on the blog. So I thought, why not show how I made this mosaic so people can give it a go themselves. 

Natural stone mosaic

I am in fact going to show two different ways of making mosaics. The first is made the more traditional way, using floor tiles of the same thickness, and the second way (which was a bit of an experiment) involved making a sort of upside-down mosaic cake!  

Mosaics are relatively easy to do and are a great project to get the whole family involved in. They make great features in a garden patio, on a wall or in a summerhouse. Anyone who has been to Gaudi’s, Park Güell, in Barcelona, Spain will know the endless creative possibilities with mosaic art.

The first mosaic I will demonstrate is the more conventional tile mosaic. This type of mosaic can be pre-made and slid into place later. This method is great because this means that it can be made on the kitchen table where the whole family can get around and be involved, it also means that it can be completed over a period of time.

This is in fact a mosaic I did for my parents some years back, I was finishing up a tiling job when I realised we were going to be short of tiles, the tiles were relatively cheap so the boxes came with many broken tiles. So I thought why not put the broken tiles to good use and make a mosaic (and save a trip to the tile store in the process).

So here are a few things you will need if you are going to give this a go!

• A piece of plywood (or something similar) large enough to fit your mosaic on.
• A sheet of mosaic tile mesh (available from craft store or online)
• Plastic wrap.
• PVA Glue
• Broken tiles, or mosaic tiles (available from craft store or online)
• Paint Brush
• Marker
• Tile glue
• Tile grout 

The first step is to decide on your design, in my case it was a yin yang symbol, but be as creative as you like. Or if you are lacking inspiration, you can also find many mosaic designs and templates on the internet.

When you have decided on a design, transfer the design onto your sheet of plywood to the scale you desire.

Next stretch plastic wrap over the board (this will prevent the mosaic from sticking to the board). Then lay your tile mesh on the board. Use some tape or tacks to keep the mesh in place. If you are finding it difficult to see the design you may want to retrace the design onto the mesh.

If you are using old tiles try and use tiles of the same thickness as it will give you a more even finish. Also take care when breaking up the tiles as the tile fragments can be sharp, be sure to wear gloves and eye protection. It is also advisable to lay an old towel over the tiles as you break them to prevent the fragments from flying around the place.

Now you are ready to start laying the tiles. Using your paint brush put a blob of PVA glue on the back of each piece of tile as you position it on the mesh. (you want to be using enough glue to get a good bond with the mesh without getting to much excess glue squeezing out the sides and through the mesh)

 It can be quite tedious getting all the pieces to fit together like a big puzzle, but try not too worry about the gaps between the pieces as once they have been grouted you won't notice the gaps.

To fix the mosaic in place, get some tile glue either premixed or in powder form (just be sure that the glue is suitable for exteriors if the mosaic is outdoors, rapid set is also preferable). Using a tiling trowel spared an even layer of glue on the surface where the mosaic will sit, then carefully slide the mosaic into place. Lightly press down on the mosaic so that the glue starts to push through the mesh but try not to get it coming to the surface. Wipe off excess glue and leave to set. Once the glue is set to the manufactures specifications, mix up your grout (again make sure the grout is suitable for outdoors)  and squeeze into the gaps with a squeegee and remove residue with a sponge when it starts to set (usually only takes a few minutes). And there you have it, one finished mosaic!

So now I will show you the process I used to make the spiral mosaic for this seating area below.

Click here to see a video of the building of this project

So this mosaic was a bit of an experiment because I needed to make it off site, but I could not make it the conventional way (as above) either as I would be using natural stone which would be of variable thickness resulting in a very uneven finish so I decided I would try and make it similar to an upside down cake, that way the finished mosaic would be perfectly smooth and even.

Hole left in paving for mosaic

There are probably better ways of doing this, but I will now demonstrate the process I used to make this mosaic, using the materials I had to hand in my little garden shed.

So first of all, I knew I wanted to make a spiral and that it had to be a circular shape just under 80cm in diameter as this was the size of the hole I left in the paving for it.

I also wanted to use the same stone I used to create the surrounding paving, so before leaving the site I collected a number of pieces of stone averaging a thickness of about 1cm. In order to get a clear design I only selected pieces that were either light grey or dark brown, to maximize the contrast. I then took my measurements and my stone home with me to work on over the weekend.

So my first step was to come up with a design, I opted to go with a fairly simple spiral design as a very complex design would be very difficult to achieve using natural stone. I then transferred the design onto two large sheets of paper to get it to full scale. Remember if you are planning on trying one of these upside down type mosaics your template drawing should be back to front ( this is important if you have any lettering in your mosaic. Mine is just a spiral so it was not an issue)

I then attached the template onto a piece of plywood (approx 1m² in size) and drew a box around the outside of the circle. At the four points where the box and the circle meet, I attached pieces of 2”x2” timber onto the plywood, then using some strips of hardboard (nice and flexible) that I had laying in the shed, I created the circular mould that would contain the mosaic, by connecting the hardboard strips to the 2”x2” timbers I connected to the plywood.

I was now ready to start laying. (It is important to remember when laying the stone to put the side with the highest contrast facing down so that you end up with a better contrasting design when you're finished)

Laying completed

The picture above shows all the stones placed, however the contrast between the two coloured stones does not seem great. This is of course because we are looking at the underneath of the mosaic and I have the most contrasting sides of the stone facing away.

Next I got a large piece of plastic mesh and cut it to size (the mesh will help keep the mosaic in one piece and prevent it from cracking into little pieces when it comes to laying it later)

I then mixed up a half bag of cement fondue I had in the shed with some sand and water in a bucket into a creamy mixture (not too wet mind you) that would seep into the cracks  (a bag of quick drying cement should work fine as well)  I then poured half the mixture on to the mosaic and spread it out, careful not to move any of the stones.

I then added the plastic mesh and poured the rest of the mixture on top so that the mesh was sandwiched in the middle.

I then left it for a few hours to set. I waited till it was set long enough that it was hard but still soft enough that I could scratch the surface, the reason for this I will explain in a second. So the next task was to flip the mosaic over, to see if the experiment worked at to see if there was enough of a contrast between the two stones to show up the spiral properly.

To do this I put another sheet of plywood on top of the mosaic and screwed it into the 2”x2” timbers below, sandwiching the mosaic which allowed me to flip the mosaic over safely without damaging it. Then sliding the mosaic to the edge of the table I was able to take the screws back out and reveal my creation.

All that was left to do now was scrape any excess cement from between the cracks using a pointed tool (I used a pointed screwdriver and a nail) and brush clean. Because the cement was not completely set yet I was easily able to remove the excess glue.

From here the only thing left to do was transport the mosaic back to site and slide it into the hole on a bed of cement and grout it with a grey grout using the same technique mentioned earlier.

 So I hope this has inspired some of you to give mosaicing a go, and hopefully some of the information here will help you along the way. If you do give it a go, please post a photo of your mosaic creations (or indeed any of your other garden stone art creations) on my stone art facebook page so I can have a look. As for the rest of you who don't already know my facebook page do pop in and give us a 'like', I update the facebook page every few days with lots more interesting things as well as mini post, photos and more.