Join internationally renown mosaic artist, author and instructor Emma Biggs from England for this unique and much asked for course. This course will fill quickly!
Emma Biggs is founder of London's Mosaic Workshop, the UK's biggest mosaic studio. She has designed and made architectural scale mosaics for churches, cathedrals, museums, mosques, and numerous public and private clients. Her personal work is in national and international collections. The best-selling 'Encyclopedia of Mosaic Techniques' is one of a number of books she has written on mosaic techniques.
Emma exhibits her fine art widely and lectures internationally on the subject of mosaics. She brings her expertise in mosaic design and color to IMA for this three-day intensive.
The course will begin with a digital presentation of contemporary mosaic work demonstrating design fundamentals that will be covered in class and illustrating a range of different design strategies that mosaic artists use. Emma will present her own work and explain the principles underlying her work.
Class will include lecture and presentation of basic color and design theory, optical mixing of color in a mosaic and how different mosaic materials work in a design. Students will learn to understand how materials are affected by light and other colors around them, taking into consideration reflectivity, how light is absorbed in some materials and the ways in which tesserae are laid.
Instructor will focus on design principles for making an effective and visually appealing mosaic. Class will cover the concepts of tone, intensity, and hue and will examine common color pitfalls and look at how to cut and lay a variety of materials to achieve a variety of colour effects.
Use of grout and mortar as a design element will be discussed as it undeniably has a transformative effect on the color of a piece. Students will also learn how to look at the role of the matrix, of shadow and of the angle of laying into mortar, giving students a much broader understanding of the range of possibilities. To grout or not to grout will also be discussed with examples shown.
Both figurative or abstract work will be discussed in relation to tonal color, and the role light plays in creating a sense of form. This is a very complete course that's aim is to demystify the design process and give students a broad understanding of how to use design and color principles in their own work to move their work to the next level.
During the three- day course, Instructor will lead students through a series of small projects in which students will experiment with the use of tone, intensity, hue, reflectivity, design contrast and other principles presented.
Students may wish to bring photos of their work for instructor feedback.
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