Mermaid I can't help you with your grout question. But had to chime in on this piece. WOW. I'm drooling over your work. Love it.

OH MY!!! This is wonderful. You've really advanced in your mosaics. I love the general flow - is that adamento?? - of your whole project. I, too, have read that you can grout b/f you put your indirect in place. I believe it was a chair bottom on which I was reading that method. I think, if I were doing it, I'd wait and grout after all is in place, but I'm thinking that's a matter of choice for the artist. No advice here - never did it. I like your tiles - from where do you get those?

Thanks Kati and Slow. Slow, Yep i was going for opus vermiculatum.(had to look that up. LOL) I'm trying to expand my mosaic knowledge and try new things.

The tiles are Cinca, made in Portugal. It just so happens their N.A. warehouse is here in Melbourne, Fl. Sandefeet and I made a trip there several weeks ago. Bought a lot of tiles. I'll attach the link to the Cinca site Lisa Bogo is the contact and she said you can order directly through them if you want to. You can probably get them other places too. Martin Cheek uses a lot of Cinca in his work. I just noticed the link said USA but I imagine if you call Lisa she could tell you.

Note to myself, be sure to seal before I grout. LOL. I forgot to do that on my toucan lamp and it made for more work

Here is a link that might be useful: Cinca tiles

Can anyone tell me what adamento means? I couldn't find it on mosaic dictionary

Here is a link that might be useful: Mosaic Dictionary

Check the link you provided, it is in there under the A's.
'

Here is a link that might be useful: adamento

Mermaid, I have read the same article as you did about a pre-grout but I think it is because they are using that pre-grout as their "glue" instead of thinset or other adhesive, and then then grout again. I will be starting something like that soon and instead of the pre-grout I will be using thinset, then I will grout as usual.

Ah, I just saw this show up again. I WISHED i had pregrouted !! I had a disaster when I turned over the kraft paper. Actually it was when I was peeling off the paper. A ton of my tiles stuck to the kraft paper INSTEAD of the substrate

I won't ever use kraft paper again, plan to use contact paper or mesh instead. I had to almost redo half of the mosaic. And I've not been as happy with it on the second go around because I didn't take the time it took me to originally make the mosaic.

I think the pregrouting would have saved me all of the extra work, just my .02. I think it was a combination of very small tesserae, glue mixture, and kraft paper.. But since I'm never using that dang stuff again...

If I ever do another indirect, I'll use whatever method works for the application, like contact paper for stepping stones, and mesh for almost everything else. I wouldn't use thinset to put the tiles onto the mesh, but I would use thinset/or silicone to fix the mosaic directly to the substrate. Does that make sense?,

Charmo good luck on your project.

Oh, Mermaid. I'm so sorry to hear that you had problems with this beautiful project. We all learn from other's mistakes, but I hate to learn from this particular piece, as it was a favorite of mine. Would you mind showing us the final piece?