Looking so good. Those chicks are going to town on the corn someone threw down. I can almost hear the clucking.

Them thar is a bunch a Country Quilt Chickens...a new breed! Don't let Foghorn Leghorn near em!!!ha!

a few more done this morning

OH..MY...GOSH!! You are incredible! I love how you've pulled in so many different patterns and colors to make up the individual chickens. This is way above my head...my brain doesn't think on this level...lol. Very original! LOVE IT!

Addiesue

Amazing again. Your shard work reminds me of someone on the Junk side, whose name I can't remember. Y'all really have a way w/those pieces. I so love this project.

my shard work reminds me of someone on THIS board... mmmm Slow! lol really don't shake your head, it was your style using footers and chunky pieces that always came off with a Mexican folk art look that I LOVED!

All the other plate people are way more precise, Annie, Lyndalu and Tasymo - all very talented but a very different look and feel to their pieces. I tried that with my tea set remember? and afterward I thought it was pretty but man what a lot of fuss, matching up the pattern and fitting it so tight - thats just not me.

its your work that inspires this, Slowmedown!

Thank you too, Addiesue

OH THAT'S IT!!! TASYMO - she REALLY is good w/shards. Thanks for your compliment, NT. I'm gonna try to do better on mine - use smaller pieces - after watching you work.

Tasy is EXTRAORDINARY with shards, remember her chair! miss her around here.

I'm done with cutting shards now, need to thinset so I can make the legs and get on the figuring out the background

oops, forgot the pic DOH!

mmm....I like it!
Would blend in on the side wall of my parents' house. exactly where the chicken yard is.
They'd have lots of other guests for dinner!
:)
MMM... do those roosters ever fight? If we have more than 1, they kinda do that!
:)

WOW! This is going to be amazing. You girls are really very talented. The chickens look great. I can just see hens in the courtyard scratching around for feed.

NICE: This is going to be an amazing piece!!!! Can't wait to see it done...WOW............Way too cool!!!

thank you guys! I got the legs done, started the background and last night I grouted 6 chickens

grouted the rest of the chickens today

That is awesome!!! I have chickens in my kitchen..

hey thanks Copper! good to see you

here is the background andamento, I'm trying to create persective by using smaller pieces as I get further up the piece

I just popped in to look around and HAVE to say thanks for sharing this as you go. I have no time these days for mosaic projects and watching this from step 1 is the next best thing to making one! Not to mention, it is beautiful.

How big is this? And did you use thinset for the substrate or another kind of mortar? If your Wedi-substitute works, you are my hero - Wedi is expensive and not easy to come by.

BTW - I LOVE that you used the back side of glass tile for the ribbed chicken legs (perfect effect) & different colored grout for the chickens. The background andamento is going to be lovely too.

this is beautiful

This is going to be so beautiful when you are done, I can't wait. What an incredible job you are doing.

You win again. Your work improves w/each project. I LOVE this one. The chicken legs are sooooooo good. Looks like the front one is gonna move any minute. You, like Tasymo, can get such small details out of shards. I have a longing to get back to work, but still too tired from the trip.

thank you all for your comments, (good to see you hme Slow)

Ans, its approx 17 by 36? and it was portland and sand but I'm thinking with would have been lighter with just a slurry of thinset painted on... live and learn

I am in the home stretch and hoped to be grouting today but a recurring headache keeps hampering those plans... this is where I am right now - hope to finish glueing today

Your andamento on the background is so beautiful. What are those background tiles? They're perfect for this. BTW - I posted pictures of the workshop on the conversation side.

Aren't those beautiful? they ARE perfect and really making the chickens glow. Its Cinca unglazed porcelian - got them from WitsEnd.com I'm combining terra cotta and granite brown.

Girl it is somthing .I just love this !
Glad you are home slow

and its done!!! I can't get a decent pic yet but good enough for now

I love unglazed porcelain - it's so earthy. The colors you used and the andamento contrasts perfectly with those wild, colorful chickens. Bravo!

Thanks for sharing your substrate info - I would really like to try this someday when I have more time. Now that it's done, have you weighed it?

Truly a work of real art.

thanks!

its certainly heavy, but it appears to be a large block of cement so its lighter than it looks. I don't have scales so I can't wiegh it unfortunately.

I don't know how I missed this post before now. This work of art is amazing! I love love love it. Beautiful composition, colors, such innovative use of shards. You are so talented.

Absolutely beautiful!!!! Great job!!!

Nice, you probably already know this, but on CMA, if you select photos and then sort by Most Popular, out of 13,505 photos, yours is Number One! Woo-hoo!

wow, really? its really kind of shocking how well this is being recieved there.. maybe I should work in pique assiette more often huh? cool!

DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HA HAA HA, I think I've just been smacked on the back of the head by a redhead in Texas! lol

Yup - oh - you watch NCIS too, huh? NT: - ANYTHING you do is outstanding - no matter what medium!!!

Just looked at the photos on CMA again this morning, and guess what? ChickchickchicKEN is STILL Number One in popularity . . . I just can't stop looking at it. Fabu!

LOL Slow!

Silva, that is kind of thrilling hey! I put this on the critique group and its been interesting to me that all 3 replies so far have said they can't make out whats going on just behind the front rooster , suggesting that it should have been a more open composition... LOL I think that means I accomplished my goal of depicting chickens feeding!lol These folks evidently have never watched how that works, not telling where one chicken ends and another begins! I do agree with them that some shadows would have been good, I couldn't find the right thing in my stash to depict it....

You're right - they're city folks, and have never watched chickens in a group eating. Good GRIEF - the contrast is there - Rhode Island Red between two White Leghorns!!!!!!!

LOL you are RIGHT! but evidently without seeing their heads, they can't figure it out. They all made the point that I gave more detail to the blackie in the way back - I guess just beacuse you can make out its head, but I purposely skewed his details so I don't agree with that.

I think, they are describing a desire for a portrait in still life rather than the frenzied movement of chickens feeding. Critiques are interesting that way. I feel strongly that I portrayed the subject matter well enough to convey the story without explaination. But when speciffically asked how it could be improved, some suggest you change the story.

oh well, thanks for all the support and compliments on this.

Oh, definitely - your story is so plain, a cave man could understand it. Stick to your guns.

I think it turned out beautiful! You are truly very talented. Good job.

WOW...I frequent other boards here but also do mosaics too, am on the MAO list, and came here because someone posted a g'web staircase--I searched for it, saw nicethyme's TG version and WOW, nicethyme, you do amazing work! What's the CMA? I'll have to mosey on over here more often. Seriously impressive.

thank you so much for the compliments Fldirt (love that name) and Flyleft, show us your work, we love pictures!!!

GW won't let us give site addresses to places they consider competition. I've been warned before..

I have no drawing ability at all, as opposed to you with your *incredible* drawing ability...I think that's one thing that really separates out a true artist from people who do mosaic...you're clearly a true artist. Mostly I'm restricting myself to doing things around the house so far--did a backsplash (my first thing) in Sicis waterglass, an adapted Amish crazy quilt pattern which involved no cutting at all until the top edge. I wanted regular and subtle, rather than exuberant, for resale (although the units are mounted on polycarbonate and there's drywall behind it in case people just hate it). I have a final part of that, above the sink, which I'm not letting myself do until I finish DD's bath, which I'm doing out of Pratt & Larson seconds tiles--31 linear feet of 9-3/4" wide. I did some work with Oregon rock slices to intersperse them in mosaic for our master bath...and the most fun so far has been a portrait of a particular cougar for the Steve Irwin Memorial Wall at the Australia Zoo a couple of years ago now (is it really that long?) I'll link to that because it's most like what I'd let myself do if I ever finish these architectural projects!

Here is a link that might be useful: dear Malina...all I have is a color xerox...

I also wanted to say that the mosaic that will be in Mosaic Art Now (I've already pre-ordered :)) with the watches is just unbelievably wonderful. I so appreciated the WIP photos--I'd thought at the beginning that it might end up too busy but the way you handled the grouting and the background ended up more than amazingly clear and rich at the same time. Really an incredible accomplishment of coordination of field and detail. I think I have a new mosaic goddess to add to my pantheon :)

OHMYGOODNESS. Your mosaic is fabulous. You give yourself far too little credit, FLY. You are some kind of wonderful artist. Enjoyed your paintings too. IMO, one doesn't need to draw in order to produce art. I used to labor w/that fact when I was painting in oils. I LOVE your art. What an honor to have your work in Sandra R's wall.

WOW that cougar is AWESOME!!! and being included in the memorial is quite an honor, congratulations.

Slow is absolutely right,
and I'm hoping to make you feel better about your skills. While I can draw fairly decently, this particular project was designed by cutting out chickens from several resized photos, taping them down the way I liked them and then I TRACED IT! so there! lol See, what you can do, can lead to great art!!!! And it does, because that cougar ROCKS.

Thank you for your compliments on the Sidonea, it really came off very nicely and its loved by the owner! We should be getting the MAN soon too, I think. Another cool surprise to me was that I was invited by Brit Hammer to submit pictures of it for her latest book as well. Its called Break Out and features a load of great mosaics including a whole chapter on Lin Schorr's collabrative murals. Thats available through Blurb if anyone's interested.

Thanks, nice & slow (o.k., that's kind of funny :)). Actually everyone in the entire world who wanted to contribute to that memorial could do so...

And AH, so you didn't freehand all those roosters? But you still have an amazing eye. The 3D rooster attests to that.

And, um, slow...those paintings aren't done by me. I just had the luck to find them at a thrift shop, which is a somewhat serious addiction for me. I'm a great curator, I'll give myself that much :)

but thanks for the welcome and appreciation--definitely buoys me up as I try to slug away at the bathroom project. I'll post a separate thread about it soon. Back to your amazing work here--you know, this is one reason why on HD and Kitchens threads, I always say that folks shouldn't order anonymous reproduction-of-classical mosaics from Israel via eBay, they should support *local* US mosaicists! There's one woman who has a mosaic of roosters pecking that she's so proud of, over her stove, and wouldn't *this* have been SO much better, in that she'd know the person who made it, it would be of recycled materials, and of course, it would keep her money in the country's economy!

Nice & Slow! Lol!!!

My jaw is dropping in awe .....