By Vasilios Van de Verg

The background of my mosaic will be made out of ceramic and glass tiles. I specifically intend to use the tiles that come in sheets and are used in walls of houses. I have assisted my mother in renovating several homes, and I worked with these small tiles and noticed their simple colors and designs. Remembering this, I realized they would be perfect for the background of my mosaic. Because it is made from heavy material, it will be hard to transport, so I will just make it on the floor, and dismantle it when I am finished. Since the background is very simple, it would be a lot easier (and cheaper!) to get tiles of similar color to the background in sheets. I will attach them to each other to create the background. The Parrot in my mosaic will be made out of strips of paper, which have uniformly spaced cuts in them, which nearly separate the strip. This will allow it to bend slightly while still having distinct tiles. My hope is that the curved strips will have a similar effect as the curved rows of tiles in opera vermiculatum, and make the bird distinct from the rest of the mosaic. Additionally, I will only glue the connected side to the background, and let the strips overlap, to make a sort of feather effect. My plan for the parrot was inspired by the video linked below, during my viewing of which I noticed that there was a small part of each tile in a row, no matter how curved, that was in contact with another tile. 

There are a few complications with my plan, most of which have only occurred to me as a write this. The first is that, even though I plan to make the paper tiles one square inch each, due to the curving of the rows, the tiles of the bird won’t match with the background tiles, while still being in direct contact with them. I will remedy this the same way the artist of the original mosaic did; by adding a border between the Parrot and its surroundings. However, while their border is made of curved individual tiles, it would be difficult to implement this, as I would have to make a curved line of ceramic tiles and ruin the beautiful periodic geometry of the background, or add paper tiles around the bird, which would not really solve the problem. Instead, I will attach the paper tiles to a black sheet of construction paper, and cut out the parrot, leaving a half-inch of black paper around the bird, and then I will attach it to the ceramic background. This idea was inspired by an art project I did in 7th grade, where I had to first paint an undersea background, and then had to cut out drawings of sea life that I had made, and glued them to the background. My intention is that by making the background and the parrot out of separate materials, and then adding another dimension by letting the parrot be closer to the viewer, the parrot will appear distinct and somewhat out-of-place.

Video: Opus Vermiculatum – Ancient Placement Techniques of Mosaic Stones