Six Hours of Artistic Frenzy...phase one

One of my best friends Jen came over yesterday and she said she wanted to do an art project, so we decided on mosaics. We spent six hours total from about 9:30pm until almost 4am working on our masterpieces. I took a lot of photographs of the process. We still have at least two hours worth of work left to glue and grout our pieces...if we decide to grout. We might try something a little different.

Jen nor I had ever done mosaics before, so we just started thinking about all the different mediums and materials we would need. It was easy to figure out! We made a trip to Lowes and bought some stuff to work with, plus I already had many of the materials we would need lying around the house...including my kitchen cabinet doors. We used those for our frames! I love altering every day objects and the cabinet doors worked perfectly for this. I already have a plan for the cabinets so no worries that I used the doors.

During the course of the evening we drank two bottles of wine and listened to a ton of great music, which was very helpful in keeping the creative process going. By the time we were done in the wee hours of the morning, my back was a wreck and I couldn't wait to fall into my bed. I still had a HUGE mess to clean up! I wanted more than anything to be able to just leave it all but Ben wakes up so freaking early there was no way I was going to take the chance of him getting into any of it. Darn I didn't get a good picture of the mess...I was too tired to think about it.

Jen Sprays protective coat of clear acrylic on the tiles we painted earlier. This is in my garage...we had to open the doors pretty quickly...the fumes were awful!

Oranges and Reds...Jen is already thinking she'll use much of this color.

Tiles drying awaiting to be smashed to smitherenes

In the meantime, painting the frames seemed logical before we did any tile smashing.

Tile smashing tools

Tile in towel...it's not going to be whole long!

The first cut! Jen is so nervous it's going to be a disaster. We've never cut tile before

Close up of second cut.

Jen is relieved as heck because I found safety goggles and the tile cut so easy.

She's into it now...excited our project is moving along without issues.

Cutting up tiles that I've smashed in the towel. We made a great team, but we always do on our art projects!

Think we'll have enough tile pieces?

Close up of broken tiles...and yes I did actually cut some too...about five pieces! Jen gave me shit about that lol.

Jen is proud of her masterful sorting job.

Vino! Makes it all so much more fun. This was the first bottle...

Thinking of a design...what do I want? What colors shall I use?

Still thinking about it and playing around with pieces and color...thinking cool colors are what I'm primarily in the mood for.

It's getting there...decided that a splash of yellow woule be perfect.

Jen's first design almost complete.

Her second design in progress...She loves the primary colors.


Our designs complete! We just need to perfect them, glue them down, touch them up, and fill in the cracks. We decided pouring mod podge in the cracks is our best bet. We think grout will be too abrasive and cause our paint to come off the tiles. Normally people do mosaics with already permanently colored glass...but we cheated a little. I'll post more pics after taking them today. She is heading back over here so we can finish up.