Mosaics

A mosaic is a piece of artwork created by laying many small objects side-by-side to make a large picture. Usually tile is used but, as you’ll see in articles later this week, almost anything can be used to create a mosaic.

Throughout history, mosaics have been used for decoration in homes and public places. Many things can be decorated with mosaics including floors, walls, vases, and tables. Shown below are two pictures of the ruins of mosaic floors from the ancient Roman baths. In ancient Rome, people went to the baths to socialize while they bathed. You can even see the drain in one of the pictures.

When creating a tile mosaic, the artist begins by sketching the picture he wishes to create onto the surface he plans to mosaic. Then he lays out the colored tiles so he can make sure the picture is exactly what he wants. Sometimes he has to cut pieces of tile to fit into place. When he’s happy with the picture, he glues the tiles down with a special glue made for attaching tiles. Finally, the artist fills in the cracks between tiles with grout. This is called the “direct mosaic method.” There are other ways to create mosaics but they are more complicated and this is all you’ll need to know when you make your own later in the week.

Below are some picture of a tile mosaic my parents made for their bathroom. You can see the lines of the drawing in places that haven't yet been tiled. The picture was inspired by the sink you can see in the final picture.

Finally, I wanted to show you a few more examples of mosaics. The first picture below is the floor of the Curia, the Senate building of ancient Rome, which you can still visit today. The second picture is the floor of the British Museum. The third is a floor in the Vatican Museums. As you walk through the museum, this floor comes before the Sistine Chapel where Michelangelo painted the ceiling. The last picture is the floor of a church in Rome. I’m not sure which one. I took a lot of pictures of mosaic floors, as you can tell, and I lost track of which floor belonged to which church. I think these old, mosaic floors are beautiful. What do you think?

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Make an Edible Clay Sculpture

This clay tastes like candy! And you can play with it!

Materials Needed:

1/3 cup margarine
1/3 cup light corn syrup
¼ teaspoon salt
1 pound confectioner’s sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract, peppermint extract, or other flavoring
Mixing Spoon
Food Coloring

In a large bowl, combine margarine, light corn syrup, salt, and flavoring. Mix well. Slowly add the confectioner’s sugar. Stir until your mixture looks like clay.

Divide the edible clay into 4 or more balls and add a few drops of food coloring to each ball. Kneed the food coloring into the clay until the color is spread evenly. Make each ball a different color.

Now you’re ready to create a masterpiece. When you’ve finished, enjoy eating your sculpture.

If you have any extra clay, place each ball into a different Ziplock bag and keep in the refrigerator until next time. After two weeks, throw away the left over clay.

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Lost Wax Casting

On Tuesday you read about Edgar Degas’ Little Dancer, Age Fourteen. After Degas died his family made bronze copies (casts) of his original sculpture. Many people wonder how a sculpture could be created out of bronze, a hard metal. Even when an artist intends the final work of art to be made out of bronze he still begins with a clay sculpture. (Degas used waxed for Little Dancer, Age Fourteen. His family would have skipped a few steps of this process.)

First, the artist creates the sculpture out of clay. Then he pours either rubber or plaster over the sculpture to create a mold. When the clay is pulled out, the hollow area is a copy the original sculpture.

Next, wax is poured into the mold, creating a copy of the sculpture in wax. The artist must perfect any detail that didn’t come out right in the wax cast. Another layer of wax is poured over the cast to create a new hollow copy of the sculpture. Since Degas’ sculpture was made out of wax, his family would have started here when making bronze casts.

This hollow wax shell is covered with a fireproof material called an investment. When the investment has hardened, the wax is melted away. Into the investment, the artist pours the melted bronze. Once the bronze has cooled and hardened, the investment is broken and pulled away leaving the bronze cast.

All that is left to do now is clean up the cast and fix anything that didn’t come out of the invested smoothly. Often this means smoothing out seams and fixing small details such as eyes or fingernails.

I have created an illustration of the process of lost wax casting which you can find below.

This is not something you could do at home. In fact, many artists send the hollow wax mold to a professional rather than melt and pour the bronze themselves.

Click to see pictures of how a jeweler uses lost wax casting to make a ring.

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Create Your Own Clay Sculpture

You’ve already learned how Degas created Little Dancer, Age Fourteen by molding wax onto a wire frame. You’ve also learned about Michelangelo chipping away at a block of stone until David appeared. Now you can make your own sculpture using the clay recipe below. This is a very simple recipe but make sure to ask a parent before you start.


Materials Needed:

2 Cups Flour
1 Cup Salt
1 Cup Water
1 ½ Tbsp Vegetable Oil

Optional Materials:

Paints
Paintbrushes
Craft Sealant

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Slowly stir in the water and the oil until there are no more lumps. The mixture should be smooth. That’s all there is to it; you have homemade clay. I recommend setting up sheets of wax paper to sculpt on because the clay won’t stick to it. It will also protect your work space. If you use newspaper, the black ink will show up in your clay. You could also just sprinkle the table with flour to prevent sticking.

When you’ve finished your masterpiece, place it on a cookie sheet and bake at 250 degrees for about fifty minutes. Once the sculpture has cooled, you can paint it if you’d like. When the paint has dried, if you love your sculpture, paint it with a craft sealant. This will preserve the paint over time and give it a shiny appearance.

Keep any left-over dough in a plastic bag to keep it from drying out.


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Degas' Little Dancer, Age Fourteen

When Edgar Degas sculpted Little Dancer, Age Fourteen, he meant to change the way people viewed beauty. He didn’t sculpt a tall, slender ballerina out of sleek clay. Instead he chose a young dancer who hadn’t yet grown into her womanly figure. He chose a dancer who was still learning and struggling to become a star. Then he molded her in resting pose rather than in the middle of a complicated but beautiful maneuver.

The little ballerina looks tired because she probably was. Many ballerinas during Degas’ time were very poor and studied ballet as a way out of the slums. This was the case with the model Degas used for Little Dancer, Age Fourteen. Her name was Marie Van Goethem. Though she was fired from the dance company when she was seventeen and never became the star she wished to be, Degas’ sculpture has made her a recognized figure all over the world. When the sculpture was shown to the public during the 6th Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1881, many thought it was ugly, though some understood that Degas was trying to show beauty in truth. Today, the sculpture is loved my many.

Degas created Little Dancer, Age Fourteen by layering yellow wax over a wire frame. When he had completed the sculpture he added real ballet slippers, which he covered with a thin layer of wax, real hair tied with a ribbon, a bodice made of linen, and a muslin tutu. He thought the sculpture would have disintegrated before he died and, in fact, many of his wax sculptures were broken and falling apart when he died. Degas’ heirs quickly cast the wax sculpture in bronze, making many copies. The original wax sculpture no longer exists. Today, many museums have bronze casts of Degas’ sculpture, Little Dancer, Age Fourteen. The one shown here stands in the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, France. Also in the case, notice the smaller sculpture which was a study for Little Dancer, Age Fourteen.

Check back tomorrow for a homemade clay recipe. You can make a sculpture, too!

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