Mixed media mosaics techniques laurie mika

My art background is in painting on canvas and this evolved into painting on washed canvas, which led to painting on fabric. About fifteen years ago I had a line of hand-painted dresses that had a Byzantine look. To further embellish the bodices, I started playing around with polymer clay to make buttons for the dresses. I found that if I used white polymer clay as a base, I could paint it to match the colors in the fabric. This method was a fairly radical departure from the traditional uses of colored clays to create millefiori canes, in the polymer clay world. However, with my passion for painting, my brushes were always at hand.

The dress thing got old . . . really old! However, the button thing continued on its evolutionary path and my buttons morphed from round to square, like tiles. I found that these little, uniquely painted tiles needed to find a life beyond that of the button, and soon they were embellishing boxes and becoming mosaic tabletops. With time I felt the need to create “art� pieces in addition to the functional art I was doing. I needed a vehicle that would lend itself to more self-expression. So, the pieces I call mixed-