Once you understand some design principles and use of color, your avenues for expression are limitless. In fact, you may run out of surfaces. My backyard is my escape — I love gardening, I love color, I love texture, I love the outdoors….it’s the antithesis of the computer, and like my gardens, my ideas flourish. Once I began to mosaic, my friends felt inclined to give me tile remnants, dishes, broken mugs, etc. And since I needed to cover the concrete in my yard and wanted texture and love to mosaic, my yard became my palette. It’s a quiet, meditative, artistic expression for me — balancing color and shape. (See this site for some good information on design principles: www.johnlovett.com). I purposely laid down larger shapes of broken tile with clusters of smaller broken pieces for balance. Color, direction, texture…all play into the design and aesthetic. Some pieces have flat solid color, others patterns. Warm colors for energy and cool colors to calm play off one another. Play around, you’ll begin to sense what works. I wanted an organic, irregular shape to invite the eye, not a hard edge, so I left uneven edges in one area. To tie in the tiles with the remainder of the concrete, I painted them a terra cotta color. Design is design is design. Beauty abounds. Go break some plates.
