A Mosaic in Three Parts

A colourful wall mosaic is a great way to add some splash to your decor; or, in this case, the means of defining a palette from which to draw when choosing other elements in a room - from paint, to furniture and accessories.

The challenge with using glass as a medium is that it's heavy. In the case of this 3' x 3' mosaic, it would be adding a lot of additional stress to the wall.  In order to break up the weight, I decided to design this piece as a triptych - three 1' x 3' panels that together form a complete picture.  This works really well with an intricate pattern, where the panels are hung with small spaces between the panels.  It grabs the eye, while the brain puts the pieces together.

Standardized Colour Systems

'Channeling Kandinsky'

Glass Mosaic Mirror 24"x32"

Tempered glass mosaic over a painted background,

by Smash Glassworks

I'm admittedly a huge fan of the painting that inspired this piece: 'Concentric Circles' by Wassily Kandinsky.  I have a large print of it in my workspace and it's been the wallpaper on my phone for as long as I can remember.  So, it's no great surprise that I developed this mosaic pattern.  I've used it in several mirrors and even as a tabletop.  I've punched up the colours and made the concentric circles more 'circular', but it's a fairly obvious derivation from the original painting. 

So, when a client asked me to recreate this mirror at several times the scale of any previous version, I was thrilled. The other aspect of customization was to finish the frame in a specific shade of blue (Benjamin Moore Athens Blue), to match their existing decor.  Easily done.

In order to make the colours hang together with the trim, the Athens Blue was substituted in a few strategic places in the mosaic background.  

Standardized colour systems allows me to adapt new and existing designs to specific colour palettes.  It's a pleasure knowing that before a piece is even delivered, it will match perfectly with the client's existing colour scheme.