I’ve been working with children for a long time now– it really is one of my favorite things.  I’ve taught classes and held workshops– but really I just find children’s art endlessly exciting, brilliant, and fascinating. So I couldn’t help myself when I was contacted by Chris Simmons, a passionate and dedicated elementary school teacher– who is celebrating her 37th year of teaching!   She told me about this project where all of the children at Mountian Avenue Elementary, painted their own ceramic tiles–  Young artists truly after my own heart! Parents got involved in the painting, and some entire families were represented! Mrs. Simmons introduced me to Sandy Russell, a generous and kind parent and PTA’er who’d been overseeing the entire project, and Kent Andrews, the affable Regional Supervisor of the district. 

  I had my “blank canvas”…  

The first step was to figure out a layout that would fit with the space I had.  The kids tiles had basically been painted with either a blue or a green background, suggestive of a landscape…. So I really tried to find a way to accentuate the “landscape” feel.  There was also such neat detail in the tiles, that I didn’t want to get lost.  Usually when there is a lot of activity in a composition, some negative space can help ground it– and in keeping with the “landscape” motif, I thought some “landmarks” would help unify and ground at the same time…..

Leaving some blank spots for my “landmarks” and blocking out some space for the fountains, I settled into a layout that felt right– and kept various families’ tiles grouped together. 

I ended up painting and firing over a hundred tiles!

  After some long, hard days of work, tile by tile, up the wall went…. 

I wanted a nice, clean look, so I used a white sanded grout

Here it is!  I decided to put a border around each of the sections– Both to unify them, and to really make the tiles pop…  Blue worked great, its one of the school colors.

You have to be sure to sponge the grout on thoroughly….

She’s so cute, I can barely stand it!

I just finished creating the border for the conch shell mosaic! Just like the shell, its on mesh, broken up into 4 separate pieces. All that’s left now is installation! I can’t wait! I’ll be sure to post a picture of the finished bathroom so you can see how it all comes together.

After visiting the Getty Villa: Stories in Stone Exhibit featuring masterpieces from the National Museums of Tunisia, with my dear friend Jane Ann Stewart (The brilliant and fantastic production designer from such films as Sideways, Election, & The Family Stone), we decided to create a small and simple mosaic in this style and technique for her bathroom.

Many of those ancient mosaics were of objects and creatures from the natural world, and Jane has a special connection with conch shells (every since she was a little girl), so that’s what I am making for her.  

Here is the shell on mesh.  I am waiting on some special blue tiles, on back order, that I will incorporate into the background and boarder.  We want the blue to connect with the blue in her swimming pool, since this bathroom is just off the pool.  

Stay tuned for updates as I complete the piece and install it into her lovely new bathroom!

Check out what I found at cnn.com about the auction. 

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) – Heavy metal fans aren’t usually seen making bids at high-end auctions, but they turned out in numbers to snatch up a coat with embroidered bats, sneakers with skulls on them and other items put up for sale by Ozzy Osbourne.“We had Ozzy fans bidding against these sophisticated fine art buyers, which you don’t see every day,” said Darren Julien, whose company, Julien’s Auctions, ran the charity sale Friday and Saturday. “For the most part the metalheads were outbidding the art crowd.”

Bidders came from as far as Germany to try to buy belongings from the Beverly Hills mansion formerly owned by the rocker and former star of “The Osbournes” reality show

The auction brought in $800,000 — more than twice the amount Julien predicted. All proceeds from the sale go to The Sharon Osbourne Colon Cancer Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.