Studio Visit November 6, 2017

Been busy times for me and once again I’m reaching to become better at juggling the various things that actually matter to me!

Steemit matters a whole lot, posting, commenting, curating, keeping an eye on supporting @sndbox, @hardfork-series, and all of the bloggers I value so much. Although I was not able to go to steamfest this year, I am quite inspired by the talks and the posts I’ve seen.

Meanwhile I’m thankfully busy in the studio with gainful work! There’s always the balance between work due now, keeping my eye on generating new products, and connecting with potential clients for future projects.

These past 3 weeks I’ve spent a lot of time creating a design proposal for a new mosaic and it feels good to have a large project on the drawing board again.

One of my favorite tasks in the studio is to make testers. Sometimes I make these to help me think through a design I’m working out or sometimes it’s after I’ve already proposed a sketched up idea and need to show my approach in physical form.

In this case, I was doing both. I needed to try out some ways of glazing flowers with a watercolory feel as well as to show the client how I am thinking of approaching color and texture with some shells and dates that will hang from a Palm Tree.

This project is a largish mosaic of 8’ x 7’ of a beach scene. Remember the mermaid mosaic I created a series of posts about recently? This same client has asked me to make a wall mosaic that will be the central focus for the indoor-outdoor hang-out area by their pool where the Mermaid Mosaic is installed. Quite an honor and it’s going to be fun to make the most beautiful groupings of leaves and flowers I can muster. Also, I now know this client well and feel the freedom to take more creative license. I have proposed an elaborate mosaic that I foresee completing sometime in February.

Some years ago I made the sea turtle watercolor painting in my header photo to show the detail I wanted to use for a pool mosaic. As can happen, this project in Connecticut was abandoned when the client decided not to put in a pool after all but 20 years later it’s serving as a good reference for the Sea Turtles that will be in my current project. While the colors are too rich, there are elements of shape and detail that are offering some inspiration.

my usual mess

Thanks for following my blog and supporting my work, it makes all the difference!

Thank you @stellabelle for the gif!