Sirena Caikalu asked me to create a ceramic Whale mosaic for the wall of her house in Oxnard CA, and this is what we came up with.
First I make a life size wooden template and draw the image onto it. Then I cut it up into numbered tile shapes to use to create clay tiles.
Here are the template tiles with the cut clay tiles underneath.
Here I am creating a raised surface on the clay tiles called Ba relief to create depth.
I then bisque fire and glaze fire the tiles.
I create a marine ply and concrete board backer and cement on the tiles.
The backer board is fortified with aliminum and spray painted reader for its forever home.
The Wall before we painted it and before we mounted the three pre-made Humpback Whales
Serina, Karen Hartman and I painted the wall and Michael Moberg put up the hangers and we hung the Humpbacks on the 21st of May 2022.
Close up of the tile work