Space and Depth in Mosaic Art.

When creating a Ceramic Tile Mural it is important to keep the design very simple. I am three quarters of the way through making this large mosaic picture.

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Throughout the process I have learnt new techniques and wised up to certain aspects of mural creation, planning and design. I always do learn something new along the way - no matter how big or small the project. I will pass on some of the ideas that have become clearer for me over the past few weeks as I write about this project.

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Make your mural easy to understand. Visual balance and clear images help the viewer see instantly what is happening in the picture. The viewers who will see this mural are vehicular traffic and pedestrian passers bye. They will not be viewing it in the same way as browsers in an art gallery would. I have employed various simple tools to give visual clues about space, depth and size. Aspects of Visual Literacy talked about in this article are :

• relative size
• depth through shading
• and the need for bold outlining

Mosaics are made from small chipped and broken tiles. Like Pointillist Paintings they are made up of dots of colour. Ranging from about 2 inchs square to 1/2 an inch square. To gain an understanding of Pointillism view this painting by Georges Seurat.

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The Painting is called "Banks of The Seine." Browse

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What Goes Back In Space Gets Smaller.

The boat coming from behind the tree in the bottom right hand side of the picture is much larger than the boat able to be seen in the distance nearer the horizon line.

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the path of sand (known here as a sand bar) gets much smaller as it goes back into the distance. This leads the eye toward an island. I have been careful to exaggerate these differences so that it is plain to the viewer what he or she is 'supposed' to be seeing. Don't forget that the cars come around the corner fairly quickly and so 'visually unpacking' the whole image needs to be a very quick mental process indeed. Because mosaic work has the dotty, fuzziness of Pointillism, it is important not to clutter the picture plain. I suggest the artist ensures that images are clarified.

Rescue Your Outlines.

By this I mean outlines should be clear and dark but not thick. Big thick outlines make the images even harder to see. So really break those tiles up into little pieces when you are outlining. With your clippers it is possible to nip the tiles so that you have long skinnny slivers. These slivers are ideal for judicious clarification. Blocks of colour should be bold and simple by contrast. Try to keep each image blocky, clear and exaggerated.

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