I like her sky. I just posted a picture on nicethyme's poppies post which I meant to post here! It's a Sonia King mosaic and I like her background, if you could do it in sky and sea colors instead of white.

Here are some of my faves I went and looked at-interestingly they are made of squares. Its how the squares are placed. and sometimes large curvy pieces fitted together look good. ZTempered glass may be an alternative also.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15630383@N08/2629523450/in/faves-wackyweeder/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15630383@N08/2632688778/in/faves-wackyweeder/

The suggestions were fantastic. I really like Sonia King.

Wackyweeker, you gave me some good ideas. I guess square isn't as boring as I thought. Susan

hey susan, with water I think its wise to use long linear peices but yes sky is always troubling to me too. Have you looked at work by Barb Keith? She does some pretty innovative stuff

Here is a link that might be useful: Barb Keith

Nice, Keith's work is amazing. I see how she's done the long curvy tess for the water. I picked up some sheets of glass yesterday and will experiment with them today.

I had two "aha" moments thinking about sky and water - first, they're in movement the majority of the time, which requires curving lines. The shape of the individual tess isn't as important as showing movement. My straight rows of not so great cut squares for sky, plus just randomly placing different colors of blue in the rows, was not attractive.

Second, is color. I still have a problem trying to represent depth with color. Dark colors recede and light colors come to the foreground is my understanding.

I can say that when I tried doing a sunset, I didn't blend the colors and it looked like a horizontal color wheel.

So I bought those sheets of glass with a bunch of color variations in them and I think that will work much better.

Landscapes are totally different than doing a flower or cat.

Whew! I've also gone a little nuts ordering glass. There are so many types, shapes, and colors. Am I wrong in thinking that the more choices you have, there is more potential for more richness and serendipity in mosaic making?

Um, I went through this stage with gardening. It does help making fresh combinations when you have a lot of material.

On the other hand, my workspace is getting pretty cluttered. Susan

She's got it bad, folks, the mosaic bug!

Susan, I have lots of material. It's stored in the garage, the shed, the pump house, the back porch, and under my bed. My goal for 2013 is to use up more than I acquire.

Beautiful works all of them...my work space is a mess!! Someday I'm hoping for a studio....course it wud probably be a mess too LOL!!!

YES, those blended colors work well for giving you a richer and deeper look I made this sunset harbor view from one sheet of blended orange

and you can also divide out the tonal values in one sheet and use them,, the water color in my table was all from one color blend, I separated the darker and used it for shadows

the greens in my poppies are from my scrap collection which give me a wide variety of tones

Ah, Silva, I thought I was in the throes of a new obsession!

Your stashes cracked me up. I have part of the garage taken up for bags of thinset and grout, but the rest is at least confined to one room - so far.

Of course, I have one year of doing mosaics to your ten+.

Nicethyme, your works are beautiful. I'm fond of oranges and reds too.

Haven't gotten around to any experimenting yet.

Bills, cleaning, cooking - grrr. Such dull time-consumers.