Sea glass mosaic window frame (spring 2012)

Before

After

I had what I thought was a great idea: cover the wooden window frame in our shower with a mosaic of sea glass. I was always afraid to leave anything there lest I damage the wood, and it looked sort of dingy. And mosaics... how awesome would it be to have a Gaudi-esque area in my home?

So I stopped by our local hardware store, where they know everything - I can go in there with a list of odds & ends I've been needing for months, and within minutes a brusk sales clerk will have zig-zagged me through every aisle, collecting exactly what I hoped for, and I'm done. This time, I was trying to find some sort of adhesive for the glass, figuring that would suffice and then I could grout around it. I had seen some tiling videos and there seemed to be more supplies required than I wanted to hassle with (a notched trowel etc.). Turns out I can use an all-in-one product and use the tool I spread spackle with to smear this stuff on.

Next I found a stash of sea glass I had gathered last summer in Maine with my daughter and friend. I sifted out some flat pieces and got started. In retrospect: I should have laid out a pattern. Did I really think I could fit a puzzle of random colors and sizes together and actually stumble upon an interesting design? Ridiculous. In my attempt to to fit each puzzle piece of glass, rushing so the grout wouldn't dry up before I was done with a section, I made something really ho-hum.

When I was done with the ledge, I thought climbing up the sides of the frame might improve the design. Alas, it still did not look very good. When my husband came home he said it looked "dangerous", although each piece of glass is worn smooth. From a distance, it looked jagged. Also, it looks a little too similar to the shower floor, which is a pattern of muted stones. Similar, but not unified... maybe even a bit 'matchy-matchy'.

Shower floor has similar pattern, which is a problem

I was not sure what to do next. I didn't want to tear it down - there would be repair to the sill, I was sure, plus what a waste of glass! It really is beautiful stuff. So I charged ahead with another layer of grout. What a mess - I really should have stopped to read instructions. With all of the slight curves of the glass, this was not a smooth surface, so grout caught in so many nooks and crannies the glass was barely visible anymore. I tried scraping away some, and the grout looked pitted. What a mess. I found some rags and used them to smear away the excess, to again expose the glass. That worked decently but I ended up smoothing out the surface with my fingers.

In-process mess of grout

After wiping excess and smoothing grout

In the end, this was not a successful project. I put this off for months because tile work seemed daunting, but I fully expected to get swept up in the process. That did not happen. And you can tell; the end result is uninspired. There is nothing of the Gaudi or other organic, beautiful mosaics in this.

Ah well, perhaps this project will serve as a cautionary tale... I don't think it should have been difficult, but my impatience did me a disservice in this case.

Cost: <$10 for a bucket of grout and a cheap spreading tool
Time to complete: several hours over two nights

Alley in Richmond, VA 4'x5' painting (spring 2012)

Garages across the street (week of 4/9/12)

Garages with more detail (week of 4/16/12)

For the first time that I can remember - maybe ever - I am able to paint from life and keep my stuff set up. My kids are scared of the room that I'm using; they think it's haunted. I'm not exactly keen on the room either but hey, this is the only way I can keep toxic stuff out 24/7. And while the view is not exactly inspiring, it's growing on me. I love industrial landscapes and a dingy old alley... well, it has a lot of the shapes I am drawn to, when I look close enough.

Starting to flesh out the initial sketch a bit (week of 4/9)

The alleyways Richmond are pretty interesting. Some are still dirt roads and all are narrow. It's startling to discover one of these alleys the hard way, when a car flies out while you're walking by. Many of the houses on this street have garages and small backyards. The structures presumably date back 100 years, like the houses.

I've been working on this on and off for three weeks. I'm not quite sure what the background will look like so whatever seems most interesting gets my attention at this point. It's also tough to see a lot of what's through the foliage behind the garages - it is getting thicker every day.

Progression (week of 4/16)

The right side of this composition needed some height, and I always have a hankering to paint sycamore trees, so I threw one in here. There is a tree in loosely the same area, but it's nowhere near as interesting. Some sort of scraggly oak.

There's a telephone pole with a mess of wires and boxes on it that I want to include. Today I roughed in the shape - can't wait to get the snarl in there as well, but that will need to be more of a finishing touch.

There is quite a bit of foliage that wasn't there when I started painting a few weeks ago, so I've got to figure out how much of it to include.

As of the start of the week, 4/3/0

By end of day 5/2/12

Each garage has obviously evolved over the years. I like to see the impact of time on a place, especially man-made structures. It's strange how many differences there are just in this small view: some roofs have tar, others tin, and others shingles. Some structures are stone, others brick, and some have siding over them. The shapes are pretty interesting, how they mash together.

Each garage roof top is a bit different (week of 4/9/12)

It's been a bit of a challenge to get all of these lines straight, but I like going back over and over until they look right. I keep reminding myself to step back before I commit to an angle that is just not right. Do others keep levels on hand??

A few more details (week of 4/16/12)

More details (as of 5/2/12)

I did not want to paint each brick. No way... completely boring. But then I found myself on endless conference calls where I was not writing anything but needed to keep focused on the conversation. If my hands were not occupied, I'd start checking for urgent emails and then my mind would wander... so I brought my laptop upstairs and slowly started fleshing out this wall. 

The bricked-over window is not in this location but I could see it through another window so I added it. The bricks veered off erratically so I had to re-paint them a few times, but I think this works pretty well.... other than the cartoony left side, which needs a bit more texture or something.

Tree updates early week of 4/30, inspired by a tree in a nearby park

Tree as of 5/2/12, fleshed out a bit more

There is a tree in this location - but it was not particularly inspiring. But I've wanted to paint sycamore trees for awhile so I figured I could do a swap. I googled several images to get some examples of their twists and turns, and sketched in the general size and shape of the trunk.

The branches should sweep over the garages, though, and I got stuck. Then I saw a tree in a nearby park that had large, sweeping, overlapping "arms". It was not a sycamore but it had a great shape. I grabbed my phone, took a photo, and got back to work. So now this is a Frankentree.

Part of the reason for this tree, other than to have some height int he composition on that side, is to cover an obscured part of my view. I did not want to guess at what the outlying buildings and their rooftops looked like, because I could not see them. Foliage obscures my view, so I figured it should in the painting as well... but I haven't painted leaves since some Bob Ross-esque attempts in high school. Gritty factory scenes and figure studies have been more intriguing... and easier. But I'm pretty happy with this so far.

I'll continue to update this with photos as I progress.
Update 2013: We don't have a rental in Richmond anymore and my house doesn't have an alley... so no progress or hope of progress on this one at the moment.