Leopard Jungle Mosaic

After completing the stair mosaic, I was inspired to create another mosaic.  I had the idea to mosaic the front panel of our bathtub.  My inspiration was a jungle design that you could find in an ancient Roman bathhouse and my catchphrase was "keep it classy".  It took many weeks of planning, cutting, gluing, and arranging before Ben and I finally stuck it in place.  As soon as we stepped back from our bath I knew the placement was 100% wrong.  Our bath runs parrel to the wall and our bathroom isn't a huge space, so the mosaic could only be seen on an angle that hid the design.  Conscious of the glue setting time (only a few minutes) we pulled it off the bath and ran around the house to find another location.  Ben wanted to stick it to the side of our home but I wasn't convinced, so we settled onto the side of a carport :) Much better!

Laying and gluing the design onto the mesh.  My original drawing sits under the mesh so I can see where to add the different colours. 

Almost there! Just need to add in the grout.  You can see some sections where I've applied the tile adhesive too thickly and it has pushed through the mesh, don't copy that! :P

And the finished design after grouting (hard to get a good photo because it's so long!) 

I wanted this project to use leftover materials from our other mosaic projects, so the grout ended up as a grey tone from the leftover white and black grout powder. 

The leopard! 

In the beginning, I was so disappointed because only a few bright yellow pieces were available.  That limitation forced me to get creative and to use some gold and plain clay shards.  I'm so so happy I had to get creative because it ended up being a more dynamic design with the different shades.

I love mosaicing because it's very similar (although more forgiving!) to putting together a puzzle

One of my favourite features is that little burgundy tile as the palm berry

I also love his little eye too!

and I'm a sucker for those blues floating in the background - helping to break it up.

The piece in it's installed glory :)

I'm happy to give mosaics a rest for a while.  Also happy to have our lounge room cleared and not filled with piles and piles of tiny ceramic pieces :P