Kate Rattray's Mosaic Blog

New website!

Kate Rattray — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:49:30 +0000

I have spent a good couple of weeks intensely programming my website. A complete re-design. The slide shows were programmed by my son, Dan. (Nerdy geek in Manchester!) So I have been on a bit of a steep learning curve of css and added to my knowledge of html. Now you can shop in my online store (that’s for the big pieces, the little pieces are still in folksy). Have a look and tell me what you think. I am still tweaking it a bit, so if there are any problems with loading or missing pages please let me know.

Click the screenshot:

Little Birds’ Day Out!

Kate Rattray — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:31:50 +0000

I thought you should know that I am out of my winter hibernation early and I have taken up jogging to sweep away the cobwebs and the excess fat gained from the Christmas booze and chocs! So full of energy I am, with plans for new projects and with some already completed. But more of that in the next post…

This time I want to tell you about my little (hanging) birds who chirruped away for a day over the hols. They went to stay with Sadie, who is a lovely kooky 20 year old student. She is also a fashion blogger and writes a popular blog called “Sadies Wardrobe.” Sadie has written a fabulous post on her blog with some gorgeous photos of her making friends with my little birds. I think they got on so well they were reluctant to return! Check out Sadie’s Blog: Sadie’s Wardrobe and her post on my birds here

Sadie and the Birds:

Sadie and little bird (photo by Sadie)

Sadie and little birds (photo by Sadie)

Wake Up It’s Morning!!

Kate Rattray — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 09:45:25 +0000

I sleep like a bear in the winter holidays, but this morning my partner woke me at 8am to look at the sunrise. Bleary eyed I bumbled about, threw open some windows to the biting cold and took some pictures. Most of the photos are blurred (wouldn’t yours be if you were barely conscious?) This one is ok I think.

Christmas Eve Sunrise

Just for fun I edited the photo using a “patchwork” filter. It was better than the mosaic filter for a mosaic effect. I like the way the trees now look like buildings or chimneys…

Patchwork Sunrise

Warm Winter Wishes!

Sunshine Pendants

Kate Rattray — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:45:04 +0000

On a wet grey day back in March I made my first sunshine pendant. I made it to cheer me up and to remind me always to bring the sun with me! Well maybe it was chance but no sooner had I put it on the sky started to clear and the rest of the day was glorious!

I have a range of sunshine pendants on my Folksy shop, as well as some gorgeous millefiori pendants. Please take time to browse my shop today, make the day a sunny one! ;-)

My Folksy Shop

A Bird Is Not Just For Christmas!

Kate Rattray — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:44:23 +0000

The nice lady Ruth at the “Somerset Guild of Craftsmen’s Courthouse Gallery” in Somerton is housing some of my little birds until they find some nice homes to go to. The others have migrated to Folksy until they find homes. This is a photo I took when they were visiting me.

Roosting Birds

If you would like one please remember “A Bird Is Not Just For Christmas”, and fly over to my shop on Folksy

TWEET, TWEET! V^V^V^ x

Flying to Folksy

Kate Rattray — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 12:10:13 +0000

Last April I was out with my family watching the gliders at the Mendip flying club. It was very exciting seeing them being pulled into the air almost vertically with the aid of a wynch , then after the wynch hook dropped the glider finding balance and floating gracefully up high into the air.

Well that day was extraordinary as along came three doves to join in with the celestial flight. I was lucky to get this great photo:

What don’t you believe me? They are quite rare! At the moment they are migrating, West to Somerton, where some of them are temporarily roosting in the Somerset Guild of Craftsmen’s “Courthouse Gallery” while they wait for good homes (and not just for Christmas!)

Others have gone a long way into cyberspace over to my new shop on “Folksy.com“.

If you decide to give one a new home, I can track their migration route, it’s always fascinating to know how far they fly!

There are other birds on my Folksy shop, and more to come. And if you like my extraordinary photo you can purchase greeting cards of it.

Happy Flying v^v^v x

Gathering Darkness

Kate Rattray — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 08:42:15 +0000

I collected another new piece of work from my framers yesterday. This is “Gathering Darkness”. It takes the idea from my Flocked series - How the Sky Becomes Blue and The Birds Who Bring the Dusk (see mosaics here) into the night. It was also inspired by staring at Deep Sunset through the Woods (see mosaic here) and seeing those tree branches as huge black flying birds. This piece will also be displayed in the Frome Decorative Arts Exhibition (see exhibitions page for details).

Gathering Darkness

The mosaic is made with piastrina smalti, gold leaf glass and vitreous glass tile.

Here is a detail shot.

Gathering Darkness (detail)

Chorus of the Sun

Kate Rattray — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:40:15 +0000

My new series of three works is now complete.

The first piece – “Before the Dawn” is made with matt ceramic and glass tile (the sun is iridescent black glass tile) and gold leaf smalti. The second and third pieces are stained glass.

I am off to my framers now so the pieces will be ready for the exhibition which starts in a couple of weeks (see my exhibitions page for details).

The series is called “Chorus of the Sun” :

Before the Dawn

Dawn Breakers (II)

Going Home

The good, the bad and the … beautiful?

Kate Rattray — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:22:59 +0000

You know what it is like when someone has seen your work, then you post a photo of it on the web, and they say “the photo doesn’t do your work justice”. You are sure your photo was a good one so it leaves you feeling very good about your work.

That’s great, but what happens when it is the other way round. When you know your photo is much better than the work itself. I know this is possible because I have a confession to make.

Some of you will have seen this photo of mine which is a detail of a mosaic called “Dawn Breakers”,

original detail "Dawn Breakers"

I love this part of it, but unfortunately it is the best bit. The rest of the mosaic is a disappointment. I made it with smalti, indirect to achieve a flat surface , so it was partly due to making it in this way – i.e the smalti is quite thick and you can’t see the face of the work when you are making it. It would have been easier to have made it double indirect.

I am embarrassed to show you this but I think I have to, it is a great example of where things go badly wrong! Ready for this? OK, here goes ….

Original "Dawn Breakers"

There, see what I mean? No? How about this then…

close up of the "bad"

Here you will notice that the work is sloppy (especially the grout lines of the birds and the andamento of the smalti.) When you look at the whole mosaic the blue and the gold in the sky are both distracting, and spoil the composition. It took me some time to really come to terms with it. I even submitted a photo of it for Brit Hammer’s mosaic book – Breakout! (We must have been on similar wavelengths) but when she didn’t accept it I knew there was definitely something wrong!

This was to be part 2 of a 3 part series, and as the idea was still very important to me, I decided to remake it.

My first problem though was gold smalti – I probably had just enough, but it is so expensive (at about 80 pence a piece), and I want to keep some back to include a little in other works. So I decided to use stained glass, transparent yellows and ambers that I found in my glass bits box. By using a white adhesive to fix it to my substrate it almost looks like the silver/gold smalti I used before. I also changed the shape of the birds, so they are like my “Flocked” series, and for the rest of the sky I used bright opaque stained glass. The stained glass allowed me to use those lovely apricots and pinks you see in sunrises that I can’t find in smalti. As the first piece of the series is a square format, this one also had to be a square format.

I grouted twice, the first time in grey:

but unsatisfied with this I re-grouted in black. It looks more like “a grout drawing ” now, and I am happy at last! Let me know what you think.

Dawn Breakers (II)

Here are a couple of detail shots:

Detail of Dawn Breakers (II)

I just have to make part 3 now. I’ll post all 3 pieces in the next post.

Back In The Real World

Kate Rattray — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 08:05:16 +0000

I’ve just started a new blog called Back in the Real World. It is my little blog of inspirations – photos, sound recordings and videos – seeds for my work. The first post is a photographic collection of skies. You can see it here

I will be adding a new mosaic post here soon too- about some new work for an exhibition in November.

But for now this is my favourite photo I took at West Bay during the summer holidays, so I have made it the header on the Back In The Real World blog.