Project description
We are renovating the main bathroom of our apartment and want a mosaic panel made of smalti on the wall above the bathtub. The field is 180 by 90 centimetres, a horizontal composition: a calm sea horizon, a band of reeds on the left, a low sun over the water, no faces and no complicated figures. I will hand over my own hand drawn sketch in colour together with the photograph that inspired it. The first part of the job is to translate that sketch into a working cartoon at full size and to pick the palette in real smalti rather than in ceramic. That distinction matters to me: ceramic tesserae in blue and green go flat under bathroom lighting, while smalti keeps its depth because the colour sits inside the body of the glass and not in a glaze. In the water alone I expect forty to sixty shades, and the transitions should read from two metres away, not from ten centimetres.
The wall is a plastered brick partition inside a wet zone, so the base has to be prepared honestly. Sound the plaster, knock off anything hollow, prime it, apply two coats of cement based waterproofing with tape in the corners, then level the surface to within two millimetres under a two metre straightedge. I am open to either direct setting on the wall or the reverse method on paper, and I would like you to tell me which you prefer and why. If it is the reverse method, the panel arrives as sheets on mesh of a size we agree in advance, and the seams between sheets must not be readable in the finished picture.
Adhesive should be white and intended for glass, combed so that the tesserae stand in one plane and no trowel ridges show through the glass. Joints around one and a half millimetres, grout in a warm grey, either epoxy or a modified cement grout that survives steam and daily condensation for years without darkening or cracking at the edges.
— a full size cartoon agreed with us before a single piece is cut;
— a sample board of about 30 by 30 centimetres in the chosen palette;
— setting, grouting, clean down and a final wipe of the glass;
— a written quote for the whole panel and the number of working days you need on site.
The wall is a plastered brick partition inside a wet zone, so the base has to be prepared honestly. Sound the plaster, knock off anything hollow, prime it, apply two coats of cement based waterproofing with tape in the corners, then level the surface to within two millimetres under a two metre straightedge. I am open to either direct setting on the wall or the reverse method on paper, and I would like you to tell me which you prefer and why. If it is the reverse method, the panel arrives as sheets on mesh of a size we agree in advance, and the seams between sheets must not be readable in the finished picture.
Adhesive should be white and intended for glass, combed so that the tesserae stand in one plane and no trowel ridges show through the glass. Joints around one and a half millimetres, grout in a warm grey, either epoxy or a modified cement grout that survives steam and daily condensation for years without darkening or cracking at the edges.
— a full size cartoon agreed with us before a single piece is cut;
— a sample board of about 30 by 30 centimetres in the chosen palette;
— setting, grouting, clean down and a final wipe of the glass;
— a written quote for the whole panel and the number of working days you need on site.
Design and multimedia Cash, Bank transfer
