Further panels...

Been a while since the last post apologies, finished off the soil layers, archive panels and green hills.

Town in progress

Heres the additional Town scene and mirrored figures...

 

One of the Kite motifs in progress

Kites pre grout

Archive panel

Heres a panel showing some archive pictures pre grout and varnish. The images are from a variety of archives of the history of Prescot, Knowsley and Whiston

Update of mosaic

Progressing along now, heres further photos of the mosaics....

Prescot was famous at one point in history for its clock and watch making history, heres one of the lower sections with a grandfather clock mosaic, the clockface is still slightly opaque with the drying glue.

Heres some of the panels placed together, theyre bigger than my studio corridor now, so only afew of them can fit into this picture.

Archive prints

Heres some of the historic archive photographs printed onto the tiles.

The above photo shows the sun section of the design, it has a globe in the centre of it.
The picture below shows one of the last sections of the lower panel, the circular patterns were inspired from drawings found in the archive, of cross section diagrams of cables, taken from the local company BICC

Green fingered panels

Panels 2 and 3 are quite interesting to mosaic, lots of  flowers and colour!

Panel 2

You may notice gaps with holes in them, this isnt a mistake, its a placing for the screws when the panels are installed. You have to drill a hole, and then use a drill bit called a countersink, this creates a groove in the panel, where the screw head can sit. once all the screws are fitted into place, tiles are then glued ontop, so a nice level surface is created, and no tiles stick up!

Panel 3

A bluebell detail - the area was known for having a bluebell woodland a fair while ago.
Also, a ladybird as requested by one of the school staff during a consultation session.

Section from panel 3 - note the tile nippers at the top right of the picture, these are called rotary nippers, they are a specialist mosaic tool, and are a well guarded secret by most mosaic artists. They cut glass 10 times better and straighter than any standard pair of tile nippers you'll find. I would say they are the most important tool I use out of all my equipment!

Giant jigsaw

Here's part of the tree panels, part way through cutting out.

The panels are cut, here they are waiting to be sealed and primed, there is around 34 of them, they are pretty big. Quite like a giants jigsaw puzzle!

This is the starting point for the first panel, its at the bottom left of the design, heres a mosaic in progress:

Design historical references

Heres some historical info about the mosaic references - click on the picture to open a larger window