M is for MOSIACS #AtoZChallenge

Hey there and welcome to my blog! This month I’m posting each day with a letter that pertains to the theme of scrapbooking.

Today’s letter is unique – M is for MOSIAC.

A mosaic is a picture comprised of little pieces. Most mosaics are a formation made of tile or ceramics:

Garden Walkways

Planters

The most amazing mosaic I’ve ever seen personally was at William Randolph Hurst’s mansion, San Simeon (California).  It was luxurious in extreme, displaying the Zodiac signs inlaid with gold.

Mosaics can even be made from ripped pieces of magazines (I used to do this in high school art class.)

The spacing and contrast in mosaic art makes for a stimulating visual effect, which is an awesome element to add to your scrapbook pages.

I’ve read up about this technique in several books, and another nice thing about mosaics is there’s no wrong or right way to craft them.

You can rip an image to create a weathered look, or you can stick with traditional cutting. Mosaics also offer the benefit of not needing that much equipment, you can cut a photo using a trimmer, or simply using a ruler with an X-Acto knife.

The one caveat that you want to keep in mind is the same photographer rules mentioned in my C is CROPPING post – be careful of where you’re cutting if your image contains people or detailed subject matter.

While measuring, your “grid” may work well spatially but make sure that the dissection lines don’t sever anything important: i.e. heads, hands, eyeballs. (I don’t need a gif for this one.)  J

For my example, I took a standard 5x7 photo.

I measured and cut it into 1.5 inch sections both vertically and horizontally.

I positioned the pieces using double-sided tape (you want a flexible adhesive for this technique - a glue or tape that allows you to move the pieces if needed).

I used backing paper larger than my mosaic so I have room to play with the image. The amount of space between sections creates as much impact as the mosaic itself.

And voila! A beach scene.

One of the many ways you can incorporate mosaics into your scrapbook pages.

And so concludes week two of the A-Z Blog Challenge! We’re half way done, dear readers – can you believe it?

This Sunday is both a break day, as well as the celebration of all things bunny, eggs, spring, and spirit. Therefore, I shall return on Monday with a fresh letter for you –

N is for Negatives and Photo Storage.

Please check it out!

-         SNG