What I like about my mosaic classes is the way it’s never boring for me, as a teacher. Unlike many instructors, I’m never constantly teaching the exact same project, over and over again. With my classes, each student gets to pick their own project and I just basically facilitate them in their plans. However, that said, students sometimes do pick the same type of thing to create, but I find that they never ever do the that same thing in quite the same way!
For instance, quite a few students do pick a table top as their first project, since it’s a nice sized first project. But, I have to add that each one ends up creating something totally unique and very different. And that’s what keeps it all interesting. For instance, Gail and Jane, two students who took classes separately this spring both decided to make mosaic table tops.
Gail had actually come to her first class with just one thing on her mind, which was to reconstitute a treasured plate, that had been accidentally broken. But I knew that she would have lots of time after doing that and I urged her to do something more in the classes, and create another project. After our shopping class where she’d found lots of floral themed dishes, she decided to create a table top. Hers is a lovely floral arrangement that incorporated whole plates surrounded by a mixture of colors and textures. Turned out great didn’t it?
And yes, we did come up with a scheme to resurrect her other treasured plate too. Luckily, I found another wooden plate to glue it on to and she surrounded the original plate with a complimentary mosaic border. She was happy to be able to display it again. A success, we think.
Now Jane, my last student, also ended up deciding to do a floral table top. But, here, the similarity ends. Her design is unique to her own vision and very different again. Jane came to the 2nd class after the shopping class with a plan of action. She’d sketched out a garden picture, complete with flowers springing up from grass and dirt, all against the backdrop of a blue sky. It all came together beautifully. Each flower, a distinct set of floral dishes and the sky is a mixture of dishes in all sorts of textures but all various shades of blue. The whole arrangement worked brilliantly! So there we have it, two floral Pique Assiette table tops but each totally and beautifully unique.
