Trilogy on a Marine Theme – First Part: Play Day

Posted on May 16, 2011

This adventure started with a theme: marine and 3 big flower pots, just like the one below:

After having done a bit of research to find inspiration, I came up with 3 different designs to make me proud – all marine inspired, of course.

The first one is called “Play Day” and, as the name states, the scene is set during a nice day on the sea. The playful waves entice a group of adorable dolphins to have fun. The desired outcome for this project is to attract smiles and a feeling of general happiness and wellbeing.

To realize my goal, I started with the preparations, which means that I drew the sketch of my vision. I wanted to keep it simple, as usually the statement is more powerful that way. Here is what I came up with:

Then, I started arranging the mosaic tiles for the top and bottom parts – starting with one color (black is used to remind of the depths of the sea). The top margin of the pot is inspired by the acient Greek key symbol that I feel was most likely also inspired by waves.

I continued with the recreation of the dolphins, as they were the ones being engulfed by the waves which were thought out as hugging them.

The color I chose for the dolphins was dark blue, as I found a simple dark grey would not have been expressive enough. The tummies are, of course, white, and the eyes were realized by using onyx jewelry beads.

Then, I continued with the rest of the design, by adding the glass pebbles and the light blue mosaic tiles representing the foamy tops of the waves. The last mosaic tile additions were the colorful body of the waves: darker in the barrel part and lighter on the backs side.

The next natural step, after waiting for the mosaic pieces to dry in place, was to start grouting the work. I used a light blue for pretty much everything except for the dolphins, as I thought that would tie in the whole piece in the best possible way.

For the dolphins I chose a grey that later I found to be too light and redyed in a darker shade. I also added some sparkle, to aid with the natural sheen of their wet skin seen in the sun.

I also completed the whole work by painting the background in the same shade of blue that I used for the waves and top margin. And, to make it more realistic and interesting, I added a lighter shade on the top of the waves, just to resemble the spinkling of water naturally found on it’s surface on a windy day as the one that would create the types of waves depicted. It’s all in the details! 🙂

Then, after the process of drying was over for the whole pot, I continued to adding the final coat – stone lacquer – to make it waterproof and keep the grout from breaking loose and so on.

After that last cute dance of the pot, here is the final picture of my first creation from the Marine Theme Trilogy (before the lacquer), hosting its first flowers (just to give you an idea of its dimensions)! 🙂