Ep. 116 COMMUNITY MOSAIC MANDALA KICK-OFF, A Mosaic Vase & Starting a Smalti Mosaic for the Garden!

Ep. 116 COMMUNITY MOSAIC MANDALA KICK-OFF, A Mosaic Vase & Starting a Smalti Mosaic for the Garden!

Organization is the name of the game when prepping for a community to work on a mosaic. I want everyone to never not have something to work on. Each mandala is color coded and I have separate bins for each color palette. Then I have the master box of glass that is all organized so I can pull from as needed to keep everyone supplied with the colors they need!

Also, my son is staying here and told me he will work on the vase he started ages ago. Then he makes an appearance to show us his work and plan for the last side. This is his third mosaic project since I started in 2009! He also helped with the sky on a community mosaic project.

Then I start a new mosaic! I made the sculptural substrates in a Pal Tiya class with Maria Sarmiento earlier this year. I start with the smallest, and will be using smalti, millefiori, & gold smalti. I am keeping it simple and they will be mostly blue! Then I mix up some black (pre-mixed with colorant) thinset, put it in a baggie to keep things neat and get started. I feel a bit out of practice since its been a while with the hammer and hardie, but I soon get back in the swing of things and begin to fall into a nice rhythm. Once my thinset has slaked, I start with a swirl set in a depression on the sculpture. The corner is snipped off, and I can squeeze it where I need it. I use my scissors to prevent it from rolling around on my work surface. I add in some bits of saturated red, pink and orange to give it some bright pops if viewed from closer up. In a few places, I split the line from one to two (sdoppiamento), which gives it a nice flow. There is one area I decide to redo. I still don't like it, so I will have to come back and fix it later as I am out of time today!

Back to my son's vase, and it is time to grout! He mixed up some custom grout with blue and green to blend with the base and pop as it goes up. Using a blue finishing rubber, he spreads the grout on all sides, then wipes off excess with a paper towel. After about 20 minutes away, he comes back with a soft cloth and buffs it. All finished!!!!

THE DAY IS FINALLY HERE!!! We are starting on the mandalas today, so I share the room set up. We have ten mandalas out with about 12 people working at a time. The other five are set aside. They each volunteer for a two hour session. It is such a lovely, relaxing time! This is my favorite part. The mandalas are so beautiful!!! I just love how they are coming together! I cannot thank all the volunteers enough! Six hours later we have really gotten off to a great start! They are so stinking sparkly already.

That's Putting It Together Ep. 116! Thanks for watching. See you next time!

Link to Pal Tiya website: https://www.paltiya.com/

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