Frog Buddy

In progress workspace

I attended another one of Wilma Wyss's classes at Esalen last week. I like making something there that reminds me of Esalen; this time I chose the little frogs in the frog pond, in their honor and also as a homage to the Pacific Tree Frog that was living in my compost pile earlier this year.

I started with the little photo to the left of this photo; traced it in it's original size, then enlarged it manually by 250%. I used the double indirect method to lay the glass pieces then applied them to the 12" x 18" substrate and grouted.

Here's the finished mosaic, grouted and ready to be sealed. I'm ridiculously happy with it.  This is the best work I've ever done and frankly I'm not sure I could do better. It took me about half a day to work out the design, 2 full days to cut and lay the glass, a hour or so to apply it, then an hour or so to grout the next day.

My Frog Buddy

I ask myself why I can work so fast at Esalen, but so slowly at home. I think the key is that I have a deadline at Esalen, and no other responsibilities. So... will try to finish the table and the eyes this month.

I also brought socks with me; I nearly completed a pair from some yarn I've had for 20 years or so. Turns out you can amaze people by knitting while walking or knitting while not looking. On other fronts, 

Coffee at the edge of the world.

• I've been looking for a zipper for my green sweater and finally ordered one on the internet a couple days ago. 
• I've picked out two new knit projects (quarantine projects, if that happens). 
• I'm ready to put my shadow weave project on the loom
• I accidentally bought 2 yds of a lovely indigo and white rayon fabric at Hart's in Santa Cruz while looking for a zipper, and would like to make a top of it.

Here's  a photo from Esalen; I had coffee one morning at the edge of the cliff. Such a pretty place! And a drawing I made one morning.

Mosaics at Esalen and a knitting retreat!

I spent last week at Esalen taking a mosaic class with Wilma Wyss... What a wonderful experience! This is the third class I've taken with Wilma, and the second one at Esalen... There were 6 or 7 of us that had been in the class last year, and the rest were mostly new to mosaic. Wilma handled the various levels of knowledge and skill perfectly! I love her classes. Here's last years next to this years:

Last year

This year

So my technique is getting better, although I think my artistic expression still needs some work. I spent a lot of time talking to Ilse, Wilma's assistant, who is a very experienced mosaic artist, and learned a lot from her. These are the things that I want to remember:

• Using tile tape to pick up and move a whole design; I didn't do this, but Angie did. It's fast, but has some risks for gaps under clear glass, splugy adhesive,  and tiles shifting, but I may try it anyways. 
• Ilse's been making "cookies", which are motifs laid into a very thin layer of thinset, then applied to a larger mosaic; the benefit is that you've got a chunk of a design you can lay all at once. The downside is because of the extra layer of thinset, it may be slightly raised from the rest of the design.
• We also talked about using clear shelf liner (sticky side up) as a temporary substrate; you lay your tiles out on it, then put a second layer on top of it. Flip it over, remove the bottom shelf liner, and then apply a substrate covered with thinset to the upside down mosaic. Hypothetically you can then peel off the shelf liner (pull back, not up) and adjust any errant tiles.
• K, one of my classmates, bought a card in the Esalen gift shop and worked on making that image in mosaic. Her husband had brought a laptop, so they used Wilma's projector to project the image on the wall, traced it onto paper, then simplified and transferred the image onto the substrate. 

There was a professional artist in the class, and a couple of trained artists...  Their pieces were so lively with a wonderful sense of light and depth that my works lack. This is in fact what I want to work on this year, I'll be figuring out how to study that in the spring.

After the workshop, I joined my Monday Night Knitting group in Carmel for our yearly retreat. The storm blew in shortly after I arrived, and the next morning we woke to a power outage. Power was out until about 10PM; there we were, knitting by candlelight. Thanks to G for picking up candles and for the rest of the group for emptying all those bottles before I arrived so we had candle holders! I finished some fingerless mittens to go with the tam I knit last year, and even added a little embroidery to them. I changed up the foreground and background colors for a little variety. They'll look a little more together when they've been wet finished.

It's probably time for a What Do I Want to Get Accomplished in the Next Period of Time post... I'll get to work on that for next time!