#2 Inside the Drawing Phase of a Mosaic Commission

the small scale composition

The process of developing a working drawing for the large scale mosaic I'm making continues…

You may have seen my last studio post which was about the initial steps in the drawing phase for a large scale ceramic mosaic commission that I have underway in my studio.

First I want to note that it’s been more than a year since I’ve been challenged to produce a large scale mosaic and I’m enjoying the challenge of it more than I ever have before. I always try to do my best work but for whatever reason this time I have the confidence to push myself further reworking the imagery until it feels right.

I worked out the basic imagery and concept at the smaller scale (header image) so now with the life-size drawing my focus is with defining each of the forms as well as the tile shapes within each form. This is how - along with color which comes later - I can produce dimension, perspective and texture, and it’s also largely where the personality and presence of each object is created.

date palm, coconut palm and one of the many stray cats that hang out on Hawaiian beaches

I’m using lots of reference photos to be sure I understand the way these plants look and grow, but I always want to move beyond a realistic illustration. Realism and illustration are both beautiful in their own right, but here I’m trying to capture a mood, an experience that will evoke joy and wonderment at this vast and varied earth we inhabit; a reminder of the beauty and sweetness in life, and sometimes abstractions and distortions are very effective tools to convey this.

For example, the scale won’t be accurate - some flowers will be enormous, some small, and the animals are not the right size relative to each other. I want the Hibiscus flowers in the foreground for instance to be huge. By making them much larger than they should be and positioning just right, the blossoms give the feeling of exaggerated lush fertility. Basically I’m making each thing -plant, animal, water, etc… - recognizable but playing with size, shape, and color to create an overall effect.

Calla Lillies and Hibiscus plants

I was sure to include the White-Rumped Shama bird which has a beautiful song

I’ll admit that this drawing feels like it's taking too long. This is partially because I have other work I have to fit in to my days, but also because this process is about making decisions at every moment and decisions always take more time and creative bandwidth than I imagine they will. I reminded myself of this today and when reviewing the hours I've worked on it, realized that actually it's going along just fine. My perception of time vs actual don't always match so I'm glad that I keep a tally of actual time spent (also tallies I keep for each project cumulatively help me determine the cost for future commissions).

The day in day out rhythm of working on it has leaves me feeling really good each day. Most days I give about 4 hours to it and this time is wholly absorbing and satisfying; my mind quiets and I melt into making the lines, the forms, the gesture of whatever I’m drawing.

I switch over to working out the color every few days as the vision is coming together. Next, will be drawing the tile shapes to define the water, sand and sky, then inking in the whole drawing and lastly showing it to the client for approval. I'll show you all all of that in about a week. Then we move on to cutting it all out in clay.

Thank you for following my process, my blog, please stay tuned for more!

gif by the one and only @stellabelle