Sound of Sunshine

Here’s a look at my latest piece, Sound of Sunshine. I live in a coastal community and take loads of photos which inspire my art. I get neither sunrise nor sunset from my property. However, I can take a short walk to the bay to get both.
 
These beautiful sunrises and sunsets teem with brilliant color, but every so often the sky is devoid of much color. As I frequently do, I took liberties with the true colors from my inspiration photo and “dumbed it down," so to speak. My plan for this piece was to be more abstract with a white sky and blue water, but I had an assortment of beautiful gold tesserae and I just couldn’t help myself.

Ditching my initial abstract plan, I put the sun into the composition. In fact, I even ended up starting the mosaic by creating the sun first. Not my intention, but I started this piece just as the new year was beginning, and it seemed a bit metaphorical, i.e., new dawn, new day, new year.

This piece took a little more planning than normal. I couldn’t use thinset to self-grout, because some of the stained glass is transparent and I didn't want dark thinset to alter the color of the glass, but I didn’t want the interstices within the blue water to be light colored, so I adhered the larger pieces with white thinset under the glass. I then had to go back and use the dark thinset between the larger pieces so that I could adhere the dimensional pieces within the interstices. As usual, I was messy with the thinset and had more cleanup than I should have. I never learn. 

For the sky, I added a bit of off-white “aura” to the sun and created a slight contrast with the sky in a truer all white with white grout.

For the most part, this piece articulates the image that was in my brain (and the tweaked inspirational photo). 

Below is a short video of the piece coming together, from my initial sketch and notes through its completion.

Michael Franti, Sound of Sunshine,  (c)2010 

Locals may purchase this piece through Coastal Art Center of Orange Beach beginning March 11 during the Orange Beach Festival of Art. If you are elsewhere, please feel free to contact me.  Measuring 21"x30", Sound of Sunshine can hold its own unframed, since the sides are finished with colored thinset. If framed, I would recommend a floater frame. 
Thanks for stopping by,