Tuesday, November 16, 2010

11-16-10

Today kids applied the sealant to the plywood boards 
and smoothed the edges with sandpaper









Color Color Color!

Color palette has been selected and we are ready to figure out how many of each color to purchase.
3/4" plywood cut and delivered  
Today students are going to seal the wood with a 5:1 ratio of water and glue.

Inspiration!


Test square to make sure colors work together and glue is sufficient.   
This is our second test.  The first one was w/o a base sealer and the tiles could be pulled off 
easily after the glue was dried.   A thin coat of glue between the materials and plywood 
seems to have done the trick!

Monday, November 15, 2010

From the beginning...

At the beginning of this process, Youth Arts and I decided this project should be able to be moved down the road if the fate of the cafeteria changes.   We met with Michael Roy (PHI designs) and Frank Willey (EBS tile installer) to go over materials and installation possibilities.  By the end of the meeting we determined we would adhere the mosaic tiles to 2 1/2' x 5' plywood boards and create a steel track to slide the finished mosaic pieces in place.

The next phase of our planning was bringing in Portland mosaic artist Gretchen Schaeffer.    She is a very talented mosaic artist and also teaches early education at the Waynflete School.    We had a very educational day with her as she shared examples, proper techniques with hands-on demonstrations and what materials use (ie.  glass tiles,  Weldbond glue, thin set mortar, beach stones etc).    Although we had Gretchen only here for a day she continues to be a resource via email or phone.

If you would like to see Gretchen's work you can see this youtube video she created highlighting her work and style.
Gretchen's Youtube video

Maine Arts Commission website-
Examples of Gretchen's mosaic art style

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Gridding the design

Students in the Tuesday/Wednesday Schooner block have been using the grid method to create a full scale drawing of the mosaic.   This technique helps us accurately draw it to scale and allows for a work space to test materials before we adhere them to the plywood.

Friday, November 5, 2010

The design

After deciding the mural will be in the style of local ariel seascape artist, Eric Hopkins,  kids came up with small scale designs.   We spent time looking at all the kid generated designs and pulled characteristics from almost all of the them to create the final image. This photo is of the final design created by Youth Arts members Michelle Orne and Lana Arau, Portland-based mosaic artist Gretchen Schaeffer and myself.
-Kristen Andersen