A Scroll for a Count - Part the Seventh

If I've set this up correctly, you should be reading this post after this "scroll" has gone out in court, but I'll have been working on it for a month and a half.  This is my journey for the Count scroll for His Excellency, Count Ioannes.

Time gets a little wonky here.  I'm typing these as I work and occasionally going back in to merge posts together.  If any of my timing seems off, this is probably why.  Time travel is tricky business.

Today I start the face.  The dread, terrifying face.  I decided to ease into it from around the edges, because actual features are really intimidating.

Beards are also quite tricksy.  And I thought they were hard in paint.  I fumbled about for a bit with a couple of different colors of tiles in the beard and then decide to just go for it.  

Being mostly satisfied with this, it's time to bite the bullet and move on to the eyes.  They are the windows to the soul, right?  So in theory, if I can get them kinda close, I should be OK.  I messed about with them for quite some time and then decided I needed to go back to the source and see how they did them.  

There was some worry that the ones I did might be a little too anime, but looking back over some of the other Antioch mosaics, all the eyes have that sort of anime look a bit.  They aren't quite the same dark-lined eye shape of the later Byzantine mosaics, but they are still very impressionistic. 

Sidebar: This is also the point where, in looking at how eyes are done, I discovered that not all mosaics used uniform tile sizes.  Check out these two:

The larger background fill tesserae are much larger than the ones used to make the faces.  I feel better about my choice, knowing that earlier mosaic craftspeople opted for the same look.  But I digress.  

Back to the eyes.  If I had gone with my original 4'x5' plans, I'd have a lot more space to do more detailed eyes.  Instead, I tried to keep it simple and pointillistic.  I kept stepping across the room to look at it and see if it felt right.   This was a little hard to do since the piece was lying flat.  Still, mosaics aren't meant to be viewed right up close.  They need some distance to be seen correctly.  In the end, I had this:

Filling in the cheeks was an easier task, and the lips and moustache went surprisingly well but then there was the nose.  

Ah noses.  Which don't really exist.  Noses are evil.  Worse than eyes.  Worse than beards.  All they are is shadow and highlight and much like eyes, if they are done wrong, it won't much look like the person you're trying to create.  This was when I took a break for the evening.


In the morning, with fresh eyes and rested fingers, I gave it another try.  The thing with mosaics is that unlike a drawing or a painting, you can put tiles down and pull them up pretty easily and infinitely.  I spent the better part of the day finishing up just the nose. 

Can you see the difference between the photos above?  This is what today was.  Minute changes, one tile at a time.  Trying to finesse it to look as much like my source photo as possible.  I must have a dozen photos of this stage.  Move some tiles.  Stand on a chair.  Take a picture.  Squint at the picture on my phone and see what didn't look right.  Make adjustments.  Repeat.  This part was not meditative.  In the end though, I think I got it close.  

The portrait part is done!  Now for the geometric background and words!  I may actually pull this off!

A Scroll for a Count - Part the Sixth... and then some

If I've set this up correctly, you should be reading this post after this "scroll" has gone out in court, but I'll have been working on it for a month and a half.  This is my journey for the Count scroll for His Excellency, Count Ioannes.

Time gets a little wonky here.  I'm typing these as I work and occasionally going back in to merge posts together.  If any of my timing seems off, this is probably why.  Time travel is tricky business.

Scritch.  Snap.  Ca-chunk.  Glue.
Scritch.  Snap.  Ca-chunk.  Glue.
Scritch.  Snap.  Ca-chunk.  Glue.  

September 12: 

September 13: 

September 14: 

 

September 16: 

September 17:

Just adding photos to this one post because really, not a lot has changed in what I'm doing from day to day.  I'm getting really good at cutting tiles.  There's a bit of finesse to it.  I'm not using the ruler any more, but I am pressing harder with the scoring wheel.  Placement of the tiles in the snap cutter is important.  I've found that the tile needs to be in just far enough to get a good grip and the metal brace needs to be over the center score or the tile will shatter rather than break.  I'm starting to get nervous about the beard and face.  If it isn't just right, it's gonna look ridiculous and embarrass us both.  Also, I'm concerned with my tiles being two sizes.  I went with a larger size for big color areas, but I need to make smaller tiles to properly do the face.  All the mosaics I've looked at up to this point have had consistent tesserae throughout the piece.  I am working under a pretty sharp time constraint though and larger tiles fill space faster.  I think I've reached the halfway point.  I always know the halfway point because I look at the work and think, "What am I doing?!  This is terrible!!"  Experience has taught me though that the only way out is forward.  Face starts tomorrow.  Gulp.

A Scroll for a Count - Part The Fifth

If I've set this up correctly, you should be reading this post after this "scroll" has gone out in court, but I'll have been working on it for a month and a half.  This is my journey for the Count scroll for His Excellency, Count Ioannes.

Time gets a little wonky here.  I'm typing these as I work and occasionally going back in to merge posts together.  If any of my timing seems off, this is probably why.  Time travel is tricky business.

My days now consist of snapping tiles and gluing tiles.  I'm using the same Weldbond glue that I sealed the board with, but now I'm working with a ratio of 3/4 glue to 1/4 water in my glue jar.  I apply the glue with a small foam brush onto the area of the board I'm working with and then glue down those tiles.  Then I cut more tiles and glue more tiles.  I have started using my other primary tool in my tile-cutting arsenal:  The Nippers. I'm sure these have a proper name, but they basically bite off chunks of tile to adjust the shapes as needed.  I can turn small squares into small triangles.

In order to make this process easier on her hands, Gail (you remember Gail, my mother in law that makes mosaics) has bolted a vice onto a swivel stool and then clamped The Nippers onto it.  This way you can kinda put your weight behind the nipping rather than relying on hand strength to do it.  This is good, because even with the Nipper/vice setup, my hands are pretty sore.  I may need to take a couple of days off and rest.  The ache woke me up in the middle of the night last night.  Here is my progress thusfar:

September 1:

September 2:

 I've set myself a goal of getting the tile part done by October 1.  If I can do that, it will give me almost a week to grout and edge and let stuff dry.  34 more days until it makes its journey south.
I am sore and nervous.

A Scroll for a Count - Part The Fourth

If I've set this up correctly, you should be reading this post after this "scroll" has gone out in court, but I'll have been working on it for a month and a half.  This is my journey for the Count scroll for His Excellency, Count Ioannes.

 So time gets a little wonky here.  It's been a couple of days for me since I transferred the design, but in order to keep things moving along, I'm setting this post to show up the day after the last one.  If any of my timing seems off, this is probably why.  Time travel is tricky business.

My next step, now that my design is ready to go, is to seal the board with glue.

This is an important step because water makes wood warp and tiles pop off.  By coating all sides and edges of the plywood with a couple thin coats of the glue I'm using, it seals it up enough for indoor use. Gail (my mother in law who makes lovely mosaics) uses Weldbond as her adhesive of choice.

It's an adhesive AND a sealant!  From the space age!

 This stuff looks a lot like your standard PVA glue and I'm told is water soluble until it dries.  To seal the board, I thinned the glue down significantly.  About 1/3 or a little more of my jar was glue.  The rest was water.  It is about the consistency and color of skim milk.  I applied it to the front and back of the board with a foam brush, let it dry for an hour or so, then applied a second coat.  When the two coats were dry, I lay the board down on the work table and did the edges.  This was kind of a drippy mess.  Learn from my mistakes and put down newspaper or plastic. I let the edges dry thoroughly and added a second coat.  This also sealed my design in place.  No erasing and reworking now!

The board is sealed.

While this last coat of glue dried, I moved on to the tile-cutting portion of the project.  Ceramic tile cutters have two parts to them.  A little wheel that you use to score the tile and an angled bar portion that you use to snap the tile.  Being unsure of exactly how this all worked, I went to YouTube to see this process in action.  It seemed pretty straight forward, but my first few cuts on the larger tiles were woefully uneven.  I guess it won't matter too much, since I'm going to cut the tiles into smaller chunks, but in most of the period mosaics I looked at, the pieces are pretty uniform and square. After getting a little discouraged at how wonky my cuts on the large tiles were, I decided to maybe try the smaller tiles.  Afterall, outlining the black parts seems like it might actually be the best place to start. 

The first part of my tile-breaking operation.

I also brought out my ruler. My thinking was that maybe if I started with a straighter line, I would get a cleaner break.  Sure enough, the black tiles cut into nice, strangely exciting squares!  I spent the next hour turning 1 inch square tiles into  1/2 inch square tiles and by this point, my hands were really sore.  I was feeling pretty excited about the project though and instead of calling it a night, I glued the first fruits of my labor onto my board.  It's so exciting!! The project is now officially underway!

First tiles in place!

A Scroll for a Count - Part the Third

If I've set this up correctly, you should be reading this post after this "scroll" has gone out in court, but I'll have been working on it for a month and a half.  This is my journey for the Count scroll for His Excellency, Count Ioannes.

I have a sketch.  I have 45 days.  Time to get the parts to make this thing.  The Romans would have used stone pushed into mortar to make their mosaics.  I have to make this portable, lift-able and affordable, so I'm going to use cut tiles with a matte finish for my tesserae.  I grabbed my mother-in-law (who is a mosaic enthusiast and very encouraging of this project, even if she thinks my scale is unreasonably large) and we headed over to her favorite tile store to see what is available.

She prefers to use Daltiles because they have color all the way through, not just on the top, and the tiles have flat bottoms.  Apparently, I will see why this is important later.  Unfortunately for me, the local Daltile store does not sell to the general public and while they give us a sample sheet, I left the store with a growing sense of panic.  How am I going to do this thing if I can't find tiles in colors I can use?  My color needs for this project are pretty specific (and not particularly fashionable right now) and some of the colors I want to use are made to order only.  This, the sales woman tells me, takes 4 to 6 weeks and, as she reminds us 3 or 4 times, they Only Sell To Contractors.

Daltile Keystone sample card

On the way home, we were passing by a Home Depot and Gail (my mother in law) suggested we stop just to see what they had.  More bad news - their usable tiles in matte sheen are mostly just white and grey.  There were some additional colors in glossy finishes and a lot of colors that I can't use for this project.  Discouraged, I did pick up some of the white tiles, and the 3/4 inch plywood I'll need for the base.  Important tip for when you do your mosaic - really really look at the pieces of plywood and find one that is straight.  Wavy boards mean wavy mosaics.  Wavy mosaics mean tiles may have a greater chance to pop off.  We had to go through many pieces to get one that wasn't wavy or full of knots, which cause other issues with tiles not being level and with tile adhesion to the board.  You may have better luck with this at a locally owned lumber yard.  We had quite a mess in the aisle as we examined each piece of plywood to find the perfect one.

Back in the car, Gail said the hardest part of mosaics is gathering the materials but that I was welcome to root through her stash and take whatever I can use.  I had already begun to think about what else I could do in place of a mosaic, when the project was saved!  She had all the colors I could ever dream of using and then some!  I grabbed her tools, her preferred adhesive and three-trips-from-the-basement-worth of her precious tile horde and headed for my workbench.

Part of the tile horde generously shared from the lair of my Mother-In-Law Gail.

Transferring my design to the board took some time.  It's not like paper where you can just stick it on the light table and trace.  The trick of coating the back with graphite and tracing on top of the design didn't work so well either.  I ended up getting a few reference points in place and then using the compass and ruler to redraw most of it.  Fortunately, geometric designs are pretty easy to reproduce and it was faster the second time.  The portrait in the middle was a little harder, but I got enough of it in place that I had a good foundation to work from.

Spacing the letters is tricky.  I hope I drew them big enough.

I was concerned for some of the areas where there would be more delicate lines - the letters, the circles and the border around the portrait.  I decided to go over these with black sharpie, both to make them easy to see as I worked and to be sure I left enough space to accommodate the thickness of the tiles.  I don't know how small I'll be able to cut tiles and still have them be usable.

Well, I drag my fist through paint on
a regular scroll, why not do the equivalent
on a mosaic?

Useful Tip:  Sharpie does not dry as quickly on wood as it does on paper.  Unless you don't mind an odd "tattoo", mind where you place your arms.  The cover sheets that Alexandre St. Pierre (my Laurel uncle) and Ed MacGyver (my Stealth Laurel) are always nagging at me to use would have come in very handy here.  One day, guys, I'll learn this lesson.  Today is clearly not that day.

Design is transferred!

Tomorrow's project: sealing the board and cutting tiles! 

A Scroll for A Count - Part the Second

If I've set this up correctly, you should be reading this post after this "scroll" has gone out in court, but I'll have been working on it for a month and a half.  This is my journey for the Count scroll for His Excellency, Count Ioannes.

My first task on this project is to come up with a concept sketch.  To do that, I looked at hundreds of mosaics and settled on inspiration from two pieces from the Antioch Mosaics:

The Antioch Mosaics are a group of about 300 pieces found in modern day Antakya in southeastern Turkey, near the border of Syria and date to the second century during the reign of Hadrian to the reign of Justinian in the sixth century. [1]

Because doing a portrait for my first mosaic project seems like a Good Idea At The Time (TM) (and definitely scary), I've chosen to attempt to recreate this photo taken at Spring Coronation by my husband, Brenden.

 
With my primary pieces in place, the next step is to sketch out the design to scale.  My initial thought was to do something big. Like, 4'x5' big.  Practicality made me come to my senses.  I mean, a mosaic that size will be heavy and I have no idea how long it will take to do.  Plus, how will they get it home? Where will they put it?  What if they hang it over their bed and it falls and smooshes them both in their sleep?  These are the kinds of things that get you thrown into an oubliette.

I opted for a much more reasonable 2'x3'.  I grabbed my oversized graph paper and started sketching.  Scrolls should have words, but mosaics aren't really designed for excessive verbiage.  The words that will be spoken in court will be written by the very talented Lord Nicol mac Donnchaidh, but I wanted to keep the words on the front of the scroll straightforward.   There's plenty of examples of names and messages on mosaics, and something simple like ""Ivan and Matilde name Ioannes Count, October 7, A.S. 52

[2]

[3]

[4]

Which means that I have to turn to one of my favorite sources for all things Roman, Master Tiberivs Ivlivs Rvfvs Primvs.  This, my friends, is where I learn just how strange Latin is.  Apparently, while the order of words doesn't matter so much, you can tell who is doing what to whom by changing the endings of words.  Now, in English, verbs are usually the thing that gets a different ending to determine tense (walk, walking, walked) but apparently, Latin does funky things to nouns too.  Needless to say, I don't fully grasp how it all works, but after some checking, he recommended "Ivan et Matilde comitem Ionnem Fecunt Nonis Octobris A.S. LII".  Short. Sweet.  Something I can work with.

An evening of sketching (and double checking my paperwork to make sure I get Matilde's name correct) and I have the start of my project.

[1] Baltimore Museum of Art Antioch Mosaic Collection
[2] Cave Canem mosaic at the entrance to the House of the Tragic Poet.  Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
[3] Vergilius. Mosaic by Monnus. 4th cent. CE. Trier (Augusta Treverorum), Rhenish State Museum
[4] NECROPOLE OCCIDENTALE DE TIPASA (MATARES).

A Scroll for a Count - Part the First

If I've set this up correctly, you should be reading this post the day after this "scroll" has gone out in court, but I'll have been working on it for a month and a half.  This is my journey for the Count scroll for His Excellency, Count Ioannes.

I requested this scroll ages ago and had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do with it.  You see, Romans can make beautiful sculptures [1]:

Beautiful architecture [2]:

Beautiful frescoes[3]:

Beautiful mosaics [4]:

But, it is my opinion that their "paperwork" sucks [5]:

Ok, so maybe sucks is a harsh word.  After all, codices came to the party late in the Empire, but still, in comparison to their other art forms, their paint on paper is, for me, wanting.  I have done scrolls in a Roman style in the past.  This piece for Anna Serena was the first scroll of mine that I got to see go out in a court.  It was inspired by a Roman mosaic floor from Macedonia.

This time though, I want to do something spectacular.  Something outrageous.  Something that takes a couple of strong young men to carry into court.  Something terrifying for me.

I want to do a mosaic.

Having never done a mosaic before, I turned to someone who has done many - my mother-in-law, who promptly loaded me up with some books to browse through.

Mosaics In Rome

Mosaics have been an art form for 5000 years and have been used to create decorative floors, ceilings, and furniture.   Part of the reason that there are so many surviving mosaics in excellent condition is because of their use as a flooring and durable materials like stone and glass.  When buildings collapsed, either from disrepair or natural catastrophe, the rubble kept the floors protected until they were uncovered.  [6]

Romans were able to create very intricate works of art with a surprisingly limited color palate. In the Alexander Mosaic from Rome in the second century, we see that incredible detail can be achieved using tesserae (small blocks of stone, tile, or glass used in mosaics) in shades of black, white, yellow, and brown. [7]

Roman mosaics were originally commissioned by wealthy patrons to show off their status but this gave way to expanded color pallets and more religious subject matters as the artform found its way into the Byzantine churches of the fourth century.

The Project Begins

My first job is to come up with my design.  I want this to be big and impressive, so I'm going with 2'x3'.  In period, the tesserae would be pressed into the mortar which would eventually harden and keep the cubes from shifting.  Since this isn't an installation piece, I'm using 3/4 inch plywood as the base.  It will be vitally important that the piece not flex at all or the whole work could come apart.  I'll also drill holes 16 inches apart for mounting should he want to affix it to a wall.

Ioannes is a late Imperial/early Byzantine soldier, so I'm going to go with a limited pallet of earth tones.  The design will have to be bold and simplified, with details being achieved through variations in hue.  Roman mosaics also tend to put their tiles very close together, resulting in small grout lines.  They used a variety of mortar colors to anchor their tesserae, so I will also need to decide what colors that will be.  How will I sign it?  How will Their Majesties sign it?  What will it say?  Many decisions must be made and quickly.  Only 49 days to go!



[1] Marble statue of Mars: "Pyrrhus", dated to the 1st century AD. Hight: cm 360. It was found in the Nerva's Forum, in Rome, and it's now placed in the atrium of Capitoline Museums in Rome. This statue of Mars Ultor is most likely dated to the early 2nd century AD due to its style (either the end of Trajan's reign or beginning of Hadrian's). It is a copy of an Augustan-era original, which itself was based on a Hellenistic Greek model from the 4th century BC. Photo Source: Wikipedia.

[2] The Colosseum in Rome, Italy. Photo Source: Wikipedia.

[3] So-called Sappho, fourth style fresco; Pompeii, Region VI, Insula occidentalis. A young woman is shown with a pen (stylus) that is used to enscribe writing on the wax tablets she is holding. The net in her hair is made of golden threads and typical for the fashion of the Neronian period, c. 50 CE. Photo Source: Wikipedia.

[4] Late Roman mosaics at Villa Romana La Olmeda, Spain, 4th-5th centuries AD.  Photo Source: Wikipedia.

[5] Vergilius Vaticanus, folio XXIIr, c. 400, Rome. Photo Source: Digital Vatican Library. 

[6] Mosaics, Techniques & Traditions; King, Sonia. Sterling Publishing, NY.  2003

[7] Mosaic representing the battle of Alexander the Great against Darius (III) the Great, possibly at Battle of Issus or Battle of Gaugamela, perhaps after an earlier Greek painting of Philoxenus of Eretria. This mosaic was found in Pompeii in the House of the Faun and is now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Naples). It is dated first century BC. Photo Source: Wikipedia