Glass Mosaic Tile Art: Always Properly Plan Your Mosaic

Making wonderful glass mosaic tile art is easy!  Let me show you how.

Always plan your mosaic project before buying, cutting, or gluing anything.  Don't try to be spontaneous (your mosaic will suffer if you do).  Start by answering a few general questions: Why am I creating this particular piece, what’s its purpose?  Is there ample room to display it and can the wall safely support a heavy mosaic?  What kind of light will shine on it?  What theme is your focal point?  What feelings do you hope to evoke with the piece?  What art style (e.g., traditional, abstract, cubism, etc.) do you want and will it complement the style of the room in which it is displayed?

Now that you know the general requirements for your mosaic, you must answer some detailed questions, such as the following (suppose you're creating a flowered kitchen backsplash): How many flowers do you want in your mosaic?  For example, one flower with lots of leaves or three flowers with just a few leaves?  Will the flower hang in mid air, or will it “grow” out from the bottom or side border, or from a pot?

If you find it difficult to visualize your finished work, these questions can be hard to answer without help.  Inspiration for ideas is all around you, so look for it.  Do you have a flower garden in the backyard?  Are magazines lying around?  Do you have flowered wallpaper in the house?  What about your bedspreads, sofa, and other fabric?  Sources for ideas are everywhere.  Just open your eyes to see them.

When searching for ideas, don’t judge the entire image; instead, look for specific features within it.  For example, if I need the perfect sunflower head, I scan many sunflower pictures looking only at the flower heads.  I don’t care about the leaves, backgrounds, foregrounds, or anything else in the pictures.  I look only for the flower head that fits my planned mosaic design.

My favorite trick is to browse the Internet for photographs of what I want and then print the ones I plan to use.  Search the keyword “images” and you’ll get lots of hits that provide comprehensive databases of pictures on just about any subject.  Suppose you select “Google Image Search” from your search results.  Once in Google Image Search, enter the keyword “light switch.”  Believe it or not, hundreds of light switch pictures appear on screen.  Try searching for pictures of a “rusty nail.”  Sure enough, hundreds of rusty nail pictures appear.  I think it’s amazing that you can find so many pictures of the oddest things so quickly using the Internet.  If computers are foreign to you, ask your kids for help.  Within 10 seconds of clicking and typing, they’ll have hundreds of sunflower pictures ready for you to browse, from which you’ll undoubtedly find something you like.

Remember, making mosaic art is easy. You can do it.  Yes, you can!