My friend and professional mosaic artist, Jo de Freitas, recently started and completed a very big mural commission for the Greenest Hotel in Africa, Hotel Verde. This environmentally conscious hotel is situated in Cape Town near the Cape Town International Airport. The mural is to be 16 meters high and 4 meters wide. This was a large and challenging project indeed, that kept 5 people permanently busy for 2 solid and exciting mosaic-filled months.
Jo and I met taking a smalti class in the Southern Peninsula and we became firm friends united in mosaic enthusiasm for the art form. Jo asked me if I could help out for a few days on her project so I had the privilege of working on the mosaic team for a few short days, where I also gained valuable experience.
Assisted by her strong team the mosaic quickly progressed on schedule at her studio. The studio got converted with 4 long trestle tables to be able to accommodate the 1 meter long mosaic strips, which equaled 4 square meters at a time. Over thirty 4-meter strips were completed in the studio by the team.
This is a substantial amount of square meters and involved tens of thousands of tiles to be cut by hand and glued onto mesh strips piece by piece. This was quite a feat of mosaic art engineering in Cape Town, so I wanted to share this unique mosaic story with you.
There will be more photos posted here soon of the completed project…
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That is incredible! I can only imagine how many hours are spent altogether to cut it all just right :O
Thanks Andy!Many many fun hours spent mosaicing on this one.
Reblogged this on Old School Garden.
Thanks for the re-blog, Nigel!
you’re welcome!
WOW. Just WOW.
Wow. Love this one! Great work!
Yes, it is brilliant! Thanks for the comment.
Beautiful!
Superb piece Ruark