Tuesday’s Workshop with our 3rd – 5th graders was so full of positive creative energy and productivity! In fact, all of us (the students, Jose, our amazing volunteers and me) were so engaged that our time together flew. I was so impressed with how quickly our creative chaos and artistic residue was cleaned up, chairs and tables stacked and my car was again filled to the brim with our materials and art.

It’s quite thrilling to see the mosaic mural coming together! The students continued to create mosaic sections that fill in the holes of our murals.

Looking ahead, I also explained to the students that I would like to have 6″ x 6″ square mosaics based on their own drawings that I can use to test and perfect our installation process. This team was so positive and ready to support the project with their art. We provided paper, contact paper and foam core, all cut to size, and the students did the rest.

Here are the results so far:

The mosaic artists at Islander Middle School are comfortable working independently and collaboratively. It’s our pleasure to spend Thursday afternoons with this fabulous group of teens. This week we were delighted to see some of the mosaic border come together.

We now have several mosaic panels completed! Once the mosaic tape is applied to the top of the mosaics and I trim the edges of the tape, the mosaic becomes portable and we can see what it looks like in the context of our (25′ x 14″) mosaic mural/border and I can store them in a box for safekeeping.

Here’s a glimpse of the students working on mosaics for the playground project.

José and I prepared for our Tuesday mosaic workshop by dividing up the murals into organic “puzzle pieces” that approximate the sizes of the segments we plan to install on concrete walls at the playground. We used a magenta marker to outline the segments. Below, you can see our progress – in context (for one of two murals.)

The photo above (right) shows completed mosaic segments in place, but there are more mosaics-in-progress. Can you imagine them in their places in the BIG picture?

Of course, all of our progress happens bit-by-bit, like a puzzle – lots of carefully selected and placed pieces of tumbled glass and lots of concentration and collaboration.

Carole working with one of our students. This piece in now in place!

Collaborative mosaics.

An animated moment captured.

Nice work!

The other mural (34″ x 70″) being created by this group of 3rd -5th graders is at about the same level of completion. I’ll share it in a future post 🙂

Our IMS students’ mosaic work-in-progress is looking beautiful. This week, a few of our panels were completed and it’s now easier to see the mosaic border coming together.

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Below you’ll see a couple more drawings and their transformation into mosaic art.

As impressive as the resulting mosaic art, is this wonderful team of IMS artists who meet on Thursday afternoons to create mosaics for their community playground. They are creative, capable and hardworking.

An idea for next week: I’d like each student to sign finished mosaics (on the mosaic tape). It will be nice to create a brochure that we can share when the mosaics are installed.

I’m a detail-oriented artist and creating mosaics out of bits of colored bling certainly feeds this quirk. Heather, my friend, artist and a dedicated volunteer, uses the word “finessing” to describe the “fine-tuning” and fixing of our mosaic pieces before they are considered complete. Quality control is a necessary step in our mosaics because each part of the mosaic needs to be well-built for successful installation on the playground walls.

It’s so wonderful to have MIHS volunteers! Thank you ❤

Rosa and students working on a ferryboat

Some quality mosaic work in progress!

Heather finessing a skyscraper with student

A beautiful mosaic – Approved and ready to have mosaic tape applied.

Jose checking on students’ mosaic sealife

Now that our playground mosaics are moving towards completion there’s an increased focus on the quality and the “gestalt” of our mosaic project. Quality is important because the mosaics we’re creating will be installed as public art in an outdoor playground. As the elements of our mural are joined together, we sometimes need to make adjustments to enhance the “big picture”.

Finessing (verb) – to do (something) in a subtle and delicate manner.
Fine-tuning (verb) – making small adjustments to achieve the best result.
Gestalt (noun) – an organized whole that is more than the sum of it’s parts

I’ll share the results of our finessed results soon 😉