Carol, In the "Sculpture" forum take a look at the thread "mosaic and cement scuplture". I'm not sure where in this thread but Jyn is or was working on a fountain and sitting on the edge of the fountain are mosaic animals. Jyn does some fantastic work. There's a lot of pictures and I'm sure she can answer your mosaic questions. I've done fountains but nothing with mosaics. Billie

Here is a link that might be useful: mosaic and cement sculpture

Thanks Billie. There are so many different forums here, sometimes it is hard to pick the best one for the question. I appreciate the information and look forward to checking out the sculpture forum.

I would not use tufa. I would use a straight "rich" mix of sand and cement. Tufa will be porous, not a good underlayment for mosaic.

Carol, The link I posted is for WetCanvas an artists web site, not this web site. Billie

I did check out the thread you were talking about Billie, and the animal fountain project is charming! I have the thread bookmarked so I can follow the progress.

Though I got antsy and already started on the saucer part of my project and used a usual hypertufa recipe, I did think about the porosity of the surface and gave it a topping coat of portland and sand this morning to fill in the surface imperfections. Hopefully it will help with the porosity issue when I apply the mosaic. I will also be sealing the surface with latex paint before I apply the mosaic. If it doesn't work out, I will post my results of that as well so others can learn from my mistakes. Thank you for your input...I'm going in!

Carol, I've been warned away from applying mosaic to painted surfaces. I believe the reason was that the mosaic adhesive will bond to the layer of paint rather than the underlayment. You may want to check into that...maybe it varies according to what kind of adhesive is used.

Colleen