For my mosaic mandalas I've chosen as the support base smooth, unfinished wooden plates. I found a supplier, Hofcraft: The Painters Source that had just what I needed. I wanted a somewhat large plate so choose the 12" diameter size. I also was hoping to find something that was totally flat...which again I found at Hofcraft. They call it the "Plain Edge Flat Wooden Plate."
I like that the top is absolutely smooth and flat...it is taking the glue wonderfully as I place the tiles. And I like the underside...it is about a quarter inch high from the top surface...my thought is to affix a wall hanger as I envision these plates to be wall hung.
My background as an artist began as a child. My paternal grandfather was an artist. He loved to paint in oils and chose as his subjects both seascapes and California missions. With his seascapes he worked with a palette knife and achieved what I believe to be very emotional wave forms.
I studied art in college, taking the usual classes of 2 and 3-dimensional design, color theory and drawing; art history actually taught me as much as the hands-on art labs. I loved studying about sculptors. I think one thing I'm enjoying so much about mosaic work is that it is hands-on...it's both like painting and like sculpture.
I remember in college, one of the assignments in one class was to do a large [could have been something like 30"x40"] work on illustration board; it had to be done in pencil and have a geometric design of some kind and be colored all in shades of gray - no black, no white, no hues. This assignment, interestingly enough, taught me much about color. It taught me in one lesson about value: lights and darks. In my teaching, one of the things I liked to do with beginning students was to have them paint a gray scale in 7 steps. I like to work with acrylic paints for this project. Step one was always pure white [the very lightest value] and step 7 was black [the darkest value]. Their next step would be to find the halfway between the two, which would make that step 4. Then steps 2 and 3 would be the two values between white and the midpoint value; and steps 5 and 6 would be the two values between the midpoint value and black.
I believe if you can step value in black, white and gray...you can do so in any color/hue. This skill greatly facilitates any art medium.
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