Mosaic Clock

The colour palette of this most recent mosaic clock makes me think of peppers displayed at an outdoor market. It reminds me of looking out my window when I lived in Toronto's Kensington Market - stall after stall of brightly coloured produce on display.  

I've always liked this combination of colours and have been looking for the right project to use them.   Given that this project was indirectly inspired by food, this clock might add just the right spice to a kitchen.

This clock was made using a mold technique, similar to creating a mosaic patio stone, except the material used to created the foundation is a polymer base, rather than cement.  Light, so that is can easily hang on a wall.

All of the glass used for this project is opaque and contains little to no grain, so as not to distract the eye from the overall design.

Experimentation Has Its Drawbacks

There is a reason I have gone so long without making a blog entry. I have had a string of projects that didn't 'work out' for one reason or another. I suppose that when one is inclined to operating without a net, one can expect the odd disaster. I have had too many to count, of late, but have come out the other side armed with insight and a few new pieces to showcase (finally).

So, I'll begin this series of entries with the infernal clock. I relayed in an earlier blog entry that I wanted to try making a completely custom clock. After some consideration of the best way to approach this, I decided to try using a mold method. Of course you can get molds in all shapes and sizes, meant to be used for creating patio stones. A round mold seemed appropriate for creating a clock foundation. The following is the process I devised:

1) The stained glass pattern was arranged, upside-down, on clear contact paper - cut in a circular shape the size of the mold floor.  A hole in the center was left to accommodate the clock movement.

 2) The completed pattern was placed in the bottom of the mold - on the contact paper (stick site up).  Grout was applied to the spaces between the glass pieces as well as the edges of the mold.

3) Next, having created a model of the clock movement, including the shaft, I placed it where the actual click movement would go at the end of the project and poured grout around the remainder of the mold, several inches thick.  The model was removed once the grout had hardened sufficiently.

What happened next was my first mistake in this process.  Having grossly miscalculated the total amount of drying time needed for grout this thick, I popped the new clock face out a tad early.  I held the finished product in my hands for about 20 seconds before it crumbled.  I managed to laugh that one off and put it down to the perils of experimentation.

I salvaged the glass, re-assembled the pattern and repeated the process I described above.  This time, I allowed sufficient drying time and it worked as you can see from the accompanying photograph.  

Then, the second calamity struck.  I wanted to get a few photographs of the clock face in proper light.  I brought it upstairs so that it would be there for the morning, as it is often the best light.  To store it away safely, I put it on the chair in my office, wrapped up. This being a place which is off limits to my cats.  Most unfortunately, my other half, who NEVER goes into my office because he generally refuses to fold his 6'2' inch frame into my 'midget chair', decided he needed to use my computer for something.  Before I had a chance to warn him, I heard the crunch as his full weight came down on my newly finished clock.  So much for that.  (Needless to say, he was beyond apologetic, knowing that this was already the second kick at the can for this project.)  This time, the glass was not salvageable.  So, I decided to start fresh with a new color scheme.  It still needs hands, so it's not coming upstairs until it's ready to go on a wall.

Numbers Are for Sissies - Mosaic Clock Face

Although my day job finds me heavily ensconced in the digital realm, and I confess to a feeling of horror and dread at the thought of being anywhere without my PDA, I do retain a certain fondness for antiquated technology if it doubles as a functional canvas. And since, in my household, we possess the skill of telling time in the erstwhile fashion (without numbers), I'm fond of clocks with moving parts.

I've always thought that a mosaic clock would be interesting, hence the inspiration for the project featured here. My concern was that a glass face might render the clock too heavy to hang. Also, since this project was something of an experiment, I figured best not to invest too heavily in clock parts. So, with a lightweight, cheap wall clock in hand, I set about to make it my own. Given that the desired result was achieved, (and yes, the clock keeps time after dismantling and re-assembly), I'll likely create a fully customized variation next time around.

In terms of design notes, to offset the design produced by the stained glass pieces, I've used fragments of clear safety glass as the backdrop. Some time ago, I discovered quite by accident that safety glass naturally breaks into wonderful shapes, perfect for filling out a mosaic. Although I preferred the clean edges produced by simply breaking the safety glass for this project, these fragments can also be softened through grinding. The technique, sharp or softened, appears in a lot of my work. I find it's an effective way to keep a mosaic from looking overwhelmingly busy.