Wednesday, August 01, 2007

How to Make A Mosaic













Steph (not my sister) asked how we made the mosaic fireplace. It's exactly the same process as tiling but much more fun.
  1. Prepare the surface by cleaning it and removing any loose material.

  2. Smash some old plates, cups, ceramic tiles or whatever into small pieces (it's all fun and games until somebody loses as eye, so do wear safety goggles).

  3. Our design was random, but if you want to make a pattern mark it out on the surface before you start.

  4. Using a grout spreader, spread readymixed multipurpose grout over part of the area to be tiled. We didn't grout the whole area in case some of it dried out, so we just did a square foot or so at a time. If you're making a pattern, mark it into the grout by dragging the edge of your spreading tool, to make a line so you can see what you're doing. (At this point I should say that grout is very caustic so wear gloves. But we didn't.)

  5. Press bits of crockery into the grout. Ours slid about a bit but they didn't fall off so we just kept going. Keep the spaces between them about 1/8 - 1/2 inch or so. You need some space to get grout in, but you don't want big white areas.

  6. Let your design dry overnight. We found at this stage there were some big lumps of grout sticking up but they rubbed off fairly easily with our fingers after only a day. They'd probably have gone harder if we left them longer.

  7. Rub more grout into the spaces between the tiles. Work it in well taking care not to leave air gaps. Rub the grout more-or-less smooth with your fingers, and don't worry about getting it on the surface of your tiles. you can wipe it off in the next step.

  8. With a moist sponge, wipe over the surface of your mosaic to remove excess grout and smooth the grout lines. Allow the grout to harden overnight, then give it a final clean up with an old toothbrush.
This is known as the direct method of mosaic making, as opposed to the reverse method where you arrange your design back-to-front on a piece of paper and apply it later then soak off the paper.

Bear in mind that the end result is more decorative than practical. You can't make it level and smooth no matter what you do, so it's not really suitable for tables, trays etc. You can't easily clean it because stuff tends to get stuck in the grout recesses so it's not really suitable for bathrooms or kitchens. Suitable projects include house number plaques, garden ornaments, mirror and picture frames, "sculptural forms" etc. Or you could mosaic entire buildings, cathedrals and public parks if you are an insane genius.

6 comments:

Lesley said...

This reminds me of when I was a very impecunious student. I covered an empty Mateus Rose bottle with white gunge, and then stuck limpet shells all over it, allowed it to dry, varnished to whole thing and then used it as a lamp.
I don't have a picture of it as it was a very long time ago!

Anonymous said...

That looks fantastic, really bright and colourful compared to the older fireplace.

*melanie from www.meli-mello.com

Anonymous said...

Thanks Mel. I'm inspired to begin down the long but fascinating road of being an insane genius. :)

Anonymous said...

"stuff getting stuck in the grout recesses" - I would think you could grout the gaps using grout only. I suspect you may be using premixed grout/adhesive (from my very limited experience of tiling). Although even that should be able to fill the gaps using a grout float to get it into the gaps (and everywhere else), then cleaning off the tiles. Perhaps the cleaning off is not realistic with mosaic, I haven't don't mosaci before.

Anonymous said...

Hello! I'm just reading your old posts and getting very inspired. I thought you might like to see an example of mosaic-ing on the island where I come from. It's called the Little Chapel. http://www.thelittlechapel.org/

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