Updated 9/11/18
Baked Earth, in the form of tiles, is one of man’s earliest forms of decoration. But tiles are fragile and break easily. So, in an ultimate case of making lemonade from lemons, mosaics take those bits of broken tile, porcelain, or glass, and turn them into something lovely.
Mosaics were popular for the Romans and throughout the ancient world. This photo gallery has pictures of many of them. There is also a British site, The Joy of Shards, which has historical information as well as pictures of many types of mosaics from all over the world.
One of my favorite forms of mosaics are the complex geometrical patterns made from different types of stone found on Italian church floors. The Byzantine era mosaics in Ravenna are so famous, that the town has been made a UN World Heritage site because of them.
There are also artists making lovely works in mosaic today. I think the frog by Jenifer Strachen looks almost Roman in design. There are also sites such as Mosaic Mad or Mosaic Heaven, that have patterns both for free and purchase. Why not use one of these as the inspiration for your needlepoint?
That takes care of the mosaic part, but what about the manipulation? One class of manipulation which is easy to do with simple patterns is a tessellation, a pattern repeated over and over again.
But the repeats don’t have to be the same every time. You can make translations and transformations of the shapes (and what’s inside them) to create complex patterns. There are many kinds, but a simple one is reversing a pattern, another is rotating it 90 degrees. Many of Escher’s patterns are tessellations. While it’s relatively simple, the explorations in Tessellationtown give you an idea of how they work. Tessellation Creator is another program which allows you to create simple patterns.
Once you have the overall pattern, think about how you can manipulate it. The idea of manipulating tessellations is one which has been done in the quilt world for awhile and there you can find resources, pictures, and information.
I’m thinking this is an avenue I’m going to explore some more.
If painted canvases are more your style and you want to try mosaic designs, consider projects from Brenda Flynn from Purple Palm.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
What a nice post. thank you. I love the idea of taking inspiration from different sources. Needlepoint, with our 14 and 18 gauge just doesn’t give us alot of room for this kind of detail. My inspirations lately have been antique quilts. But I want to try a mosaic design next year. I saw a Picasso design at my LNS recently (on sale!) so I’m stopping by tonight to get it if nobody has snapped it up. I can’t wait to put my own stamp on that simple design. Hope you are feeling well after your dental issues. not pleasant I’m sure.
Much better, thanks. I’m looking forward to seeing what you do with the Picasso.
Keep Stitching,
Janet
I was in Philly this past week and I was thinking about what would inspire me when I looked up and saw all these wonderful buildings and their windows. I realized that it could make a very interesting mosaic though I guess not in the traditional sense. I love the linear aspect about them and I took a whole bunch of photos in the hopes of piecing them together in a needlepoint. Thanks so much for the work you do Janet.
Fionna