Winter Break, Finally!

This was the final painting I had to do in the watercolor painting class. This is an abstract of my face. I love to mosaic hummingbirds, and so, I thought I would become one with this fantasy bird and see what the world looks like through her eyes. I will do more with my face, but I ran out of time and desire. Right now I am working on a rush mosaic for Christi's Christmas present. Wish me luck. I just realized that this is my Christmas card to all of you, so have a Merry Christmas and a special prayer to all our soldiers that are away from home, may they come home safe and sound...and soon!

Water or Outerspace?

This painting was just finished in my watercolor class last week. One of my classmates thought that it looked like water and another thought it was of outerspace...hmmm

This is my first abstract painting I did after my drawing class that I took last year. It is a collage of different parts of plants that I drew and then changed the colors to create a more abstract image.

Time Flies when I'm......

I painted this Miniature painting when I returned from vacation and put it for sale at my Etsy store and it sold! My first sale on Etsy. I am going to college full time this semester, so I do not have as much time as I would like for creating mosaics. One of my required classes is watercolor painting and I love it, although it is very hard. Right now I am painting a self portrait that has to be an abstract and when I finish it I will put it here for everyone to see and ponder over.

Goose in a Winter Sky

I was really into scrap booking in 2005, and I got this tiny Asian stamp in a collage pack. This stamp had this image of an artist's drawing of a goose in flight. I thought it was so pretty that I drew the goose on this mosaic board and created this mosaic. The border is so pretty in person and frames my purple fantasy goose as it climbs through the sky. This will be for sale on Etsy soon.

New Etsy Mosaic

This little heart mosaic is only 4" x 4", but it has a commanding presence on the wall. I have it in a grouping on my wall and have enjoyed it very much. I created it in a class at IMA. Laurel True taught the class, and she challenged us to make something from a different perspective. One of the ideas was to make the grout an integral part of the mosaic, and I immediately imagined this broken heart with jagged edges. So now it is for sale on Etsy. The hummingbird plaque that I am working on is the same size, but it seems much larger to me. It probably seems larger because I am doing a more difficult piece, which has required a great deal more work.

Vacation Idyl

This is the little beach that was a short walk from our house. It is called Shell Beach, which is appropriate since I found a lot of shells and stones there. We could not walk the beach after 4 or 5pm, for the tide came in every day about that time. I painted this view on the back of postcards and sent them to a few friends. Christi and David saw the paintings and both wanted one. I did one for Christi, but I still have to do David's. I'm making a frame covered in seashells from some of the different vacations for David's painting. If Christi likes it, I'll be making another for her. I started a small mosaic plaque with a small hummingbird in the center before I left on vacation. I have almost finished it; all I have left is the background.

Miss Me or Else!

I'm going on vacation to Pismo Beach, California. I'll be there a week. I'm in a watercolor class this semester, so I'll be painting pictures of the beach. A few people have requested that I send them postcards with a painting of the beach that is right down from the house I'm staying at. If they turn out at all interesting I'll take a picture and let everyone get a good laugh. So far, all that I have painted are balls, cylinders, flowers, and pears, so a painting of the entire beach how much harder could that be. Piece of cake. Speaking of cake I like white cake with lemon filling on one layer and raspberry on the second with vanilla frosting, yummy. What's your favorite

I'll tell you all about the vacation when I return and you'll have lots of pictures to wade through. BFN!

Busy Labor Day Weekend

I now have four items for sale at my Etsy store, Mosaicing! I had to take pictures and it was not easy with the wind blowing the trees limbs around and creating shadows on my pictures-ugh! This is the main one for the blue dragonfly mosaic. It was interesting to see which mosaics got the most interest. The fantasy garden mosaic is so far the favorite; I love it too. I have only showed a few of my mosaics to family or a few friends. To think that 59 people have looked at one of my mosaics and marked it a favorite is unbelievable!

Together at last

Here they are together. I took this picture just before I mailed the purple dragonfly to its new home. I miss it, but I did not make it for me; it was meant for Connie. As you can see there are similarities in both of the mosaics, but they are very different. I hope Connie loves her mosaic.

Grouting the Blue Dragonfly

As you can see, below the mosaic is being grouted in blue. The grout almost always looks darker when you are applying it because it is wet.

Below I was applying the grout glitter in silver, blue and green while the grout was still wet. It adds a fantasy feel to mosaics. Don't you agree?

And now you have the finished piece. It still needs to be cleaned up a little, but it's done.


I'll be putting it up for sale in my store soon. It will be gracing my gallery wall until it finds a new home. I love looking at it; it's such a colorful, happy piece.

The Blue Dragonfly Mosaic is finished!

I had so much fun with this piece, and it turned out somewhat like I thought it would, only more unique and colorful than the original design. The iris's on the right popped into the picture right after the butterfly, and the large flower in the middle at the top of the mirror squeezed in at the very end. I was talking to my daughter, Christi and looked at a pile of stuff on her desk and there was a flower made out of different colors of fabric, and I knew it wanted to be recreated in glass. And so it was.

Two Pieces of Wood, Some Glass, and an Active Imagination

I decided to do an abstract fantasy garden piece. I love how the water appears to sparkle in the little pond at the bottom of both of the pieces when you see it in person. I had just completed a mosaic that had a tree in it that looked real. This time I wanted it to feel as if this wild, barren tree had just walked into this calm, pretty fantasy land and was being transformed by its surroundings...or considering the dark patches in the sky above, perhaps the tree was introducing a twist of its own. I had fun lining these two pieces up and having them flow into one another. Working around the missing knot of wood in the piece on the right, was fairly easy; I felt it added to the mosaic's uniqueness. This piece was done in glass tiles and millefiori.

Creating out of my comfort zone

This is a mosaic that I created in 2005. Another artist, Kate Murray, was talking about trying something that was out of her comfort zone. I hadn't worked with red as a focal color and I had never considered doing an Asian theme. I used beads for the first time in this piece. I also used dichroic glass, mirror glass tiles, and put pictures under clear glass from collage sheets that I purchased from Kate Murray of Vintage Charmings. I loved the way that this mosaic turned out, and became curious about the use of beads in mosaics.

You asked for it!

I took this photo outside without a flash but no flowers reflecting in the mirror, but the next best thing: me taking the picture :) Unfortunately, I don't think the dichroic glass of the dragonfly's body showed up very well in this pic. And each piece of glass seems to stand out which isn't the case when you view it hanging on the wall. It all appears so flat which is a shame because it glitters and shimmers in reality, but here is the photo you asked for.

A work in progress

I am working on a new mosaic, and it was inspired by the purple mosaic I created for Connie. I had so much fun working on that piece that I wanted to create another piece with insects and flowers. I thought it would look pretty in blue. Above is a photo I took of my work space at the beginning of this mosaic. Sometimes the drawings are very detailed with every piece planned out but not this one as you can see by the pencil drawings on the mirrored board. This one changed as I was inspired to create flowers that I have never seen or have never tried to make before. Below is a picture of one of the containers I use to help me to organize my glass and pieces I am considering for use in the mosaic. I will be posting the new completed mosaic sometime this coming week.

Latest Finished Mosaic - Dragonfly in Purple

I find that I do my best work when I am inspired to make something for someone I know and care about. My son, David, lives in Southern California and I live in Northern California. When he comes to visit, he looks at the collection of my created work and mentions that Connie, his friend in Arizona, would really like a certain piece because it is purple. Connie loves purple, and she loves dragonflies. While I was making this piece, I was inspired to put in the bumble bee and the butterfly by the delight they would bring to Connie. The piece has a mirror in the center, but I took this photo before I removed the protective masking tape from the glass.

Every year my son, David, and my daughter, Christi, and I spend a week in a house on the beach near Morro Bay. We spend many hours on the beach and I am always collecting shells, stones and sea glass. David and Christi will join in occassionally, and we find tons of great stuff. In 2007, after returning from our vacation, I decided to create a mosaic for David to have as a momento of our vacation. Once again, I felt I was successful with this piece because I wanted to create this mosaic using the shells David had found while helping me with my collecting mania. This was inspired by a picture Christi had taken while standing in an outdoor shower by the side of the house, which looked out into the garden and the beach, just beyond.

I am working on another dragonfly mosaic in blue because I fell in love with the whimsy in the puple mosaic and wanted to continue that expeprience. I am also creating a Key holder and a long slim board in squares and rectangles to practice mixing things up. Then I will begin a piece that has been haunting me for months and has to be faced and attempted to the best of my ability at this time. Like the Indian purse piece below, I know that this new one will be exacting in its execution.