Pique assiette mosaic table – Summerhouse Art

Bobbi’s Romantic Floral Mosaic Table

Posted on February 11, 2018February 11, 2018 by Helen

Mosaic Student Bobbi's table, summerhouseart.com

In my mosaic classes I teach Pique Assiette Mosaic, which is a type of mosaic made from broken dishes. This romantic floral table is the creation of my latest mosaic student, Bobbi. Most of the dishes were found in the “Shopping Class” where we poke through thrift shops looking for good dishes to break. By the second class we had a good start on a design. But before the 3^rd Class, Bobbi had discovered while out shopping, a lovely little plate with a floral design that just begged to be featured as a focal point in the center of the table. The only problem was, she needed something to outline that focal point to set it off. A rummage through my stash of dish fragments presented a perfect dish, a pale green dish with embossed flowers, that I’d forgotten I even had! Continue reading “Bobbi’s Romantic Floral Mosaic Table” →

“Blue Fandango”, The Mosaic

Posted on February 20, 2015April 3, 2015 by Helen

Thought I’d finally feature another of Will’s mosaics. This one is totally different from the first piece I featured a while ago, the one that we refer to as the “Green River” mosaic.

Will started this piece spontaneously, without a real plan. And really, that is often a wonderful way to start, open to possibilities and surprises, cutting dishes and fitting pieces intuitively.

He began with the small blue arc and from there created the larger blue wave-like arc. All of the mosaic bits and pieces are made of plates, and the blues are a mixture of various blue plates, patterned and textured. It’s a mosaic style that we both work in, called Pique Assiette, which basically refers to a style of mosaic created from dishes.

The arcs in place, he then decided on filling in the space with various whites, culled from different plate centers and even parts of the makers logos printed on the underside.

At this point it becomes more of an intuitive exercise, mixing the textures and the varying white shades, creating visual interest. The little rows of black and white squares arc off the main blue arcs. And then to lead the eye and give the whole composition another element, pops of color were included in the white areas.

On the whole, the piece has, for me, endless fascination. The name was spontaneous too, coming to him as he surveyed the finished piece. He titled it “ Blue Fandango”, and it does suit, I think. It also was made to be both table top and a wall piece.

The First of Will’s Mosaic Table/Wall Pieces

Posted on January 12, 2015April 3, 2015 by Helen

It occurred to me one day recently, that although I have header photos on the blog that feature two of Will’s mosaic tables, I’ve never actually done a post about them. In fact, there are quite a few pieces of his and many of mine, that have, as yet, never been written about.

In some cases, I’ve been saving my pieces until I had a series. More about those, another day. And with Will’s tables, maybe I just felt like I wasn’t the one to be writing about them. And of course, there have been so many distractions, new projects, health things, whatever, to put off writing about and featuring some of our work. Ah, well, never mind, I’ve decided to feature one of his tables today. It’s a start, of sorts. This table is made from a mixture of tile and broken dishes in the picassiette or pique assiette style (apparently there are two versions of the spellings).

We sometimes call this table the “Green River” mosaic, a reference to the meandering flow of green tiles that moves from dark shades of greens to lighter shades, a flow that snakes its way across the piece. But it is in no way a landscape, but more of an abstract design.

Will started with the shape of green, then intuitively filled in the remaining space, much as he would a drawing or painting. Simple arches and spirals of black, white and turquoise tile draw the eye over the ground of varying shades of white punctuated with flashes of red.

The piece functions as a table top when laid on its rattan basket which forms the table base. And when we don’t have room for a table, the basket is stored and the piece works beautifully as a mosaic wall hanging. I never seem to tire of looking at it, taking in the little details, letting my eye move with the flow it creates. To me it is the magic of mosaic combined with Will’s drawing sensibility to create a very lyrical artwork.