This week I managed to have two days of very concentrated work on the background. I discovered that if I set my phone to “do not disturb mode”  helps not to jump at every incoming sound of messages from the outside world. And I managed to do  a lot:

I decided to employ our gardener to help cutting tesserae one day a week. I observed that he is a gentle and careful worker and might be able to pay the necessary attention to detail. My observation is right, he learns fast. With his help at least the stone breaking and shaping into pyramids is going ahead well. There is still little progress in laying the tesserae onto the design which is my work and I can not concentrate well! There are too many things at the house that disturb my concentration. The renting of the studio is going ahead. I went again to look at the available studios next to Cida Carvalho. There are 5 rooms available. All with large windows and equipped with lights, plugs and a small bathroom with toilet and shower. So best conditions for a mosaic studio and working with stone and mortar for which I need a small wet space to establish my  sintering system in order not to clog the drain. I also learn that there is a …

This week I start with the background tesserae. Its a mix of beige shaded stones and marbles. I cut them a bit larger than the tesserae for the fish figures, about 1-1,5 cm2 whilst the colored tesserae are around 0,5-0,8 cm2. The rocks have been precut into stripes of about 1 x 4 x1 cm by the marble cutting workshop. The steps to prepare them until they are ready to be glued onto the design are: breaking the precut sticks into 1cm cubes, for this I use the hammer and hardie or the hydraulic stone breaking machine deciding which side will be the best to be the one that will be visible in the end cutting the other sides with nippers so that the tesserae looks a bit like a pyramid as some of the marbles had a plastic mesh glued to them they have to be sanded so no residue of glue is entering the mosaic and might disturb the cement sticking to the tesserae later then its like a puzzle to find the right …