Wild Tiles: Creative Mosaic Projects for Your Home

by Chrissie Mervine-Grace

Discover your mosaic muse Mosaics transform any plain surface into a one-of-a-kind piece of art. Now you too can create beautiful, quirky, imaginative and whimsical mosaics with Wild Tiles . With 34 projects and variations, easy-to-use patterns, step-by-step photography and plenty of tips, even beginners will create fabulous mosaics in no time at all. Experienced artists looking for inspiration will find plenty of new techniques using collage and mixed media elements, as well as advanced projects for creating more complex mosaics. Brighten your home with a wide variety of whimsical and distinct designs,

Genres: Crafts

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 30, 2006

Reviews

[Shelli · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite being geared toward a beginner audience, there are precious little actual instructions on the technical details or basic techniques of making mosaics (such as tile nipping, glass cutting, gluing, and grouting). This is a project-based book, and the projects are so rigid and specific that she even includes image outlines right in the book for you to photocopy and use. I guess this is great if you're not yet ready to experiment and improvise with your own style – and you like hers. (I, unfortunately, did not.) Her mosaics are very spacious and open, so much so that you really see much more grout than tile when viewing her projects at a glance or at a short distance. Her images appear to be striving for a "whimsical", folk art vibe – they are mostly representational –but to me just look amateur or childish. I am also not sure what the "Wild" part of the title refers to; the media for tesserae and substrates are varied, but none are unexpected or particularly unusual, and the compositions are not complex or challenging. If there was more introductory information on tools and general techniques, I could suggest this as an introductory book for anyone who really likes the author's style, but as it stands, "Wild Tiles" is really only suitable for those with a little bit of crafting experience who is looking for some easy, simple projects to reproduce.

[Ligaya · Rating 2 out of 5]

I "read" through this book quickly as I have experience with mosaic (but more so with laying tile for kitchens and bathrooms) so I didn't pay much attention to the sections on materials and techniques but focused on the projects. Most of the projects left me wanting. I thought the grouting on many pieces looked very unprofessional, and grouting is such a make-or-break step! Most of the tiling seemed very haphazard with large and uneven spacing within the piece, making the grout much more prominent than I would do. There was no discussion on the different methods of laying tile (direct or indirect) or how tesserae placement affects the composition (opus tesselatum, opus regulatum, opus vermiculatum, opus musivum, opus sectile, random). So, not much here for me, but might be good for beginners.

[Nguyen Nhung · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazingly inspiring :X