3D Mosaic Dove Reflection

This sculpture was part of a learning process. I made mistakes, but in the end, I still completed it.

In my other posts, I have already stated the difficulties I faced. But here they are anyways.

• When I was using the clay, it was difficult to attach the wings onto the body
• After firing it, there was a crack on the body because I didn't connect the two hollowed-out halves together well
• It was difficult to break the mosaic pieces
• After putting the grout in, for some reason, mosaic pieces started to fall off. This could have been because of the glue's strength.

Vocabulary/terms used in this project:

• Adhesive - used to bond an tessera to a base
• Bone dry - leaving the sculpture out to dry; to let the moisture get out of the sculpture; before firing the sculpture in the kiln
• Cutting/hammering - method used to break materials into various sizes of tessera
• Grout - a type of cement that fills in the gaps between the tessera
• Interstice/joint - space/gaps between the tessera (mosaic pieces)
• Keying - in my case, scoring up two parts of clay to help it adhere together better
• Mosaic - decoration of a surface with small tesserae (glass, stone, ceramic, etc.)
• Tessera - small pieces that make a mosaic

I think that this project shows the effort I put into it. Originally, I had wanted the composition to be more interesting, so I wanted to make a mother and baby dove. However, things didn't turn out as planned, and I ended up making them separate. In my opinion, the best part of this structure was the form of the bird. The wings were spread out and the head was upright. My least favorite part was the head. The eyes were a bit beady and the beak was too big. But, as I said before, it is all a learning process. Overall, working with mosaic pieces was a fun experience. To improve, next time, I can pay closer attention to detail to prevent myself from making as many mistakes.