Month: June 2016

Detail work with Dental Pics

Posted on by Sandy Brown Glass

The Mercer Island 3rd – 8th grade students in our workshops would likely agree that creating mosaics is a detail-oriented medium. This attention to the details also applies to installing mosaics. We adhered our top-taped, hands-on mosaics using a specialized thinset adhesive made for glass installations. This product is a bright white so that all our colors of tumbled glass, including translucent glass, will sparkle. Before we can grout with our deep gray “Pewter” mortar, we use dental tools (Thank you, Collette!) to pick away at any white thinset that is at the same level as our tumbled glass and tile.

Picking away excess thinset with patience and care.
Thanks to Jose for innovative cushioning on our tools.

We truly appreciate our amazing  volunteers who made our mosaic dentistry fun and social experience. Some of our volunteers in action:

Werner picking

Werner picking away at the excess thinset.

We’ve been picking tirelessly. What a fabulous team!

Next post will share some grouted mosaics.

Installing another mosaic

Posted on by Sandy Brown Glass

June 16th, 2016:

Today we also arrived at 6:3oam to install our second mosaic mural in the playground. This mosaic fits perpendicular to the first one and is 34″ high x 5′ wide. Here are some photos to illustrate the installation process for mosaic installation #2.

We’re installing!

Posted on by Sandy Brown Glass

We met at the Luther Burbank Park Playground at 6:30am in the morning on Tuesday, June 14th and I’m grateful for my Starbucks coconut milk latte to drink on the way. Joe McCarty (joeTile.com) our tireless mentor and  cheerleader, met José and and I on our first installation day. Carole is also an integral part of our installation team.

 

The blank cement canvas is waiting!
Jose mixing up thinset.
Joe McCarty working with Jose to cut schluter (Our stainless steel border frame)
Sandy and Joe McCarty posing with trowels and smiles
First puzzle piece of the mosaic installed!
Carole using our power tool to mix up thinset like a pro!
Check out the wonderful troweling!
Carole cleaning up stray thinset.

How to mix thinset mortar

Supplies:

  • 2 buckets (fill one with water)
  • Thinset Mortar
  • stirring tools
  • Big Sponge
  • Trowels (Margin and v-notched)

 

 

Process:

  • Mix Thinset with water for 5 minutes (Peanut butter consistency)
  • Let Thinset REST for 5 minutes
  • Mix Thinset again for 5 minutes
Jose and Carole taking a moment to reflect on our installed mosaic
Now Sandy and Jose
protecting our work with plastic and caution tape
Here’s the first mosaic mural installed
The box of mosaics is coming home empty 🙂

We worked solidly from 6:30am – 1pm creating a plastic tent to protect our mosaic from the rain. We’re very pleased with our progress today. We’ll be installing the next one on Thursday, beginning at 6:30am.

 

So much preparation!

Posted on by Sandy Brown Glass

 

 

Before  the mosaics are ready to be installed, it’s necessary for all the pieces to fit together like a puzzle. Because we’re using thinset to adhere the top-taped mosaics to the concrete substrates in the playground, it’s very important to have everything ready to install and fitting together perfectly. Delays can allow the thinset to dry out enough to compromise the quality of the bond. This behind-the-scenes process is very time and detail intensive! 

First I prepared a portable palette of the tumbled glass and tile we used to create the mosaics. I want to be prepared for any repairs or adjustments needed during the installation process.

IMG_2825

Sandy’s tumbled glass palette.

Then I taped together all the pieces of the mosaic so that we could methodically divide the mural up into segments that would go back together logically so that any grout lines would look intentional.

These photos illustrate my process.

I feel much more confident installing when I know the mosaic artwork is ready!

Adding a tiled border for consistency

Posted on by Sandy Brown Glass

A tiled border around all the student mosaics is a unifying design element in our mosaic installation at the Luther Burbank Park playground. All of our mosaic murals are made out of tumbled or vitreous glass tile and we’ve consciously looked for ways to assure that our mosaics share consistent elements within the playground and also blend well with existing artwork in the park.

To create our border, I ordered custom-blended top-taped tile sheets then cut the 12″ sheets of tile into strips. The selected mix creates a random pattern of colored glass tile in a 3/4″ border. Our border’s mix is 30% Slate Blue, 30% Aquamarine, 30% Emerald and 10% Deep Blue, our accent color. 

A sheet of top-taped custom blended tile
Cutting the sheet into stripsto make a border
Ta da!
My sense of aesthetics led me to move some of the colored tiles around
within the borders for more harmonious color transitions.

Adding the borders to the mosaics needs to be done with care so that the outside dimensions are accurate and the spacing between the tiles looks even. 

In case you’re curious about the math:

There’s about 144″ of tile border per sheet. 

3 mosaic student hands-on mosaics:
1.) 14″ x 300″
2.) 34″ x 60″
3.) 34″ x 70″

(300 x 2) + (14 x 2) + (34 x 4) + (60 x 2) + (70 x 2) = 1024″ (86 feet!)

For 86′ of border, I needed 8 sheets or  about 6 pounds of tile.