wow what fantastic work, how long would it take to finish a portrait?
It takes him between 3-6 months, pretty relentless work, he's a bit like an artistic marathon runner, just keeps on going. People really have no idea how exhausting mosaics can be, because when you are tired you can just get in to this thing that you place any old piece anywhere (within reason) thinking it's ok but it isn't really.
With subject matter like portraits to get everything just right is really important, otherwise it just looks all wrong, or the likeness or expression or perspective of features isn't there, it really is a mammoth effort.
His work is so amazing as he not only gets the direction of the pieces right, but also the combination of single colours that from the distance then are interpreted as a smooth skin tone, his ability to choose the mix correctly is staggering. Each piece is really a separate creative process, much more so than with painting that is so much easier to correct.
You see him handling the glass with these tweezers, in absolute silence and focus for ages and ages and the next thing he grabs the angle grinder to modify some tool, and then heads outside for a ***, comes back with a new idea and throws this perfect sketch on a sheet of paper of something he wants to explain to me to do next or whatever, lots of activity and kind of mayhem, and then, back to it, fine tweezer work, absolute silence. Staggering stuff.
Ehm... what was your question? :lol:
