Mosaic Monday/ Non-traditional Mosaics

"My Eye" 2012 By Mary Ellen Croteau

The mosaic above was made from bottle caps. Mary Ellen Croteau is a fine artist working in variety of media. She works large and small. She ended up on my radar from a post over at Artaic Innovative Mosaic Blog.  I was in search for mosaics created from non traditional materials for a slide show presentation I will be sharing with my mosaic class this Thursday evening.

"Close" By Mary Ellen Croteau

Mary has nested bottle caps inside of each other and the end result is really breathtaking. This self portrait is 8 feet x 7 feet. I have a false story in my head that women do not take on large scale projects very often, and large scale works seem to get noticed in the art world. Maybe I only think that because "I" am afraid of scale, Mary is obviously not afraid of much! Check out more of her work on her website it is very well done and includes diverse galleries, spanning over 2 decades and even video interviews. ...
http://www.maryellencroteau.net

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So my Mosaic class starts up again Thursday night at The Creative Arts Center. I have started using Pinterest as a means to cull images for slideshow presentations. I do not like to borrow too much time away from my student's actual working time each session, but I do like to try and squeeze in one short slideshow.   In my first class I did a presentation on the design elements and this time I want to get my students to start thinking outside the box on what types of materials they can use in a mosaic, and just what is "mosaic"? I love finding original works that do not fit neatly into a tight little definition of "mosaic". There are so many artists out there doing such cool stuff with recycled plastic. We think of Smalti lasting forever, the realty is that a lot of our garbage is going to last forever too ... why not turn it into art?

There is still time to sign up for a mosaic class in Dallas this week, and the Creative Arts Center has a variety of talented Mosaic instructors teaching weekends, mornings and evenings. Come join us!

Non traditional Mosaic Board at Pinterest