A Mother's Journal ~ A Bit of Birdsong

I wanted to show you my newest mosaic birdbath.  I just finished it up last night.

I love the colors and I love the way the little angel sits on the side. 

Thank you for looking!

Yes, this is a very short wall, but it is still a wall.  We had gorgeous weather today, so I completed the wall.

I think it turned out pretty well. I definitely learned from this project. The corners were not too hard to do, but I learned a thing or two about uneven surfaces. Cement and grout are pretty forgiving, though, so things usually work out and end up looking pretty.

I started a new mosaic birdbath today, so I’ll be posting about that soon.

Lynn

I have learned some things while working on a small (very small) brick wall around one of my garden beds.  Now, don’t look at the soil.  It’s rather poor-looking yet, but it will be improved.

First, I built the brick wall, 3 bricks high in most places.  That was fun!  I used mortar, just like I use for my birdbaths.

When applying tesserae to a vertical surface, the tiles really want to slide.  I found that making a very thick mixture of mortar, applying fairly large areas at the time (like icing a cake), and then letting it dry for just a short time, allowed me to press in the tesserae and have them stay in place.

It’s now drying.  I’ll be sure and post pictures after it is grouted.

Lynn

I wanted to show you the finished product.  It’s called Turtle Crossing.  I may seal the grout.  I am not sure.  I want to do plenty of research to make sure this birdbath is safe for the birds.  If it proves not to be, I’ll use it solely for art in the garden or inside.  I just could not resist the tinted grout this time.

Above is the aerial view.  Below is a view of the side as it sits on a flower pot drying.

More projects to come,

Lynn

The inside is all dry, so now it’s time for the outside of the birdbath to be done.  To work on the outside of a birdbath, I turn my birdbath upsidedown and put it on a supporting structure that’s covered in a protective towel.  I do not want to mess up what I have already done!!

The pieces can slide, so you must make sure the adhesive is thick enough to not run away with your tesserae!  If the pieces are large and heavy enough to really move around, I work on only small areas at one time.

So far I have posted about the design process and some of the tools I use to make a mosaic birdbath.  Here is a photo of all the tesserae put in place with mortar.

It will have to dry for at least 24 hours before I carefully begin my work on the outside of the birdbath. 

In order to place the tile pieces onto the base you are working on, you can either spread the mortar or adhesive all over the area you are working on, or you can “butter” the back of each individual piece.  Buttering has been my preferred method for most of the birdbath work I have done.

You can see a bit about the consistency of the mortar.  It will not drip off in this small amount.  It is thick enough to stick to the piece.  However, a large dollop of the mortar would not stick to the knife against gravity.

For all of my projects outside, I use a thinset, or a cement-based mortar.  I mix it to a consistency of a soft oatmeal.  Not runny, but not so thick that it won’t drip off of the plastic picnic knife that I use to work with. 

You can mix in PVA (a white glue) to make the bond stronger, although I have never found the need to do this.  I am in gardening zone 7 and all of my pieces outside have withstood freezing and thawing for up to four years and are still going strong. 

I did not plan to use green, but the idea to place the turtle on a blue “path” while looking at a green “path” came to mind.  Here is the base with all the  tesserae in position, but not yet affixed to the base.

The hardest part will be to attach the larger, outlying pink pieces and keep them in place so that they don’t slide down.