#SOFUN

Here’s the backstory on my most recent piece, #sofun. I was inspired by a seventies style retro rainbow like these that I spotted in a store. 

The rainbow prompted me to think of how I could design a wave in the same style. It involved a little math and lots of planning. I started by painting a few different designs.  I honestly find the top design more pleasing, but felt like the lower design was more on par with the retro vibe I was seeking.​

An added challenge was the fact that I am currently nursing a partial tear in my LCL (forearm), a chronic case of tennis elbow, and various shoulder issues. This meant I had limited use of the usual array of mosaic cutting tools and had to use a lot of precut tiles. I prefer to cut most of the tesserae that I use for mosaic, but for this particular design, the uniformity of precut tiles helped me to keep the design on target and forced me to rest my arm.

I’ll spare you all the methodical and measured details that were necessary in its creation, but it involved a several stages of taping, grouting, re-taping, and more grouting to get the reversed mirror image. 

Y​ou can watch it come together if you visit my instagram page.  I am having technical difficulties getting the video to directly load here. The instagram link is below. 
 www.instagram.com/reel/CrWd4DzOkL3/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link​

I’ve also included a few closeups of the finished piece.​

Besides glass, I incorporated some tusk shells into the white curvature of the breaking wave, and enhanced that with glass droplets and tiny little split teardrop glass beads to give some dimension, and suggest the splash.

The top and bottom of the wave are outlined with glow in the dark glass, and I embedded a few glow in the dark glass chips within the splash.

I created this piece with the intention of selling it but I've decided to keep if for a while.  To me, it embodies the fun of living at the coast and I just don’t get enough chances to hang out on our beautiful beaches. 

Thanks for stopping by,​