Laume's Studio

Wait! Don't go! You're not in the wrong place. I changed my blog template, or rather, I started the change. I was tired of my photos not fitting in the old format. I also felt like some people might have had a problem with white print on dark background. I've lost a lot of my sidebar gadgets and links but the sidebar has needed updating for ages anyway. Maybe now I'll be more inspired to actually do it. More to come. But for now, let's move on to more garden photos.

Today I'm only sharing one garden feature, but I took a zillion photos of it.

A million (or did I say zillion?) photos, and not one photo of the work in it's entirety. Oops. Here's the most overall pic of it I have. Isn't it amazing! It curves on to the right and the left and there's another solo animal and in the middle, the bottom of it just visible, a fountain.

A close up of Mr. Turtle, ready for children to climb on his back.

The creator is a mixed media artist named Colleen Barry. Surprisingly, she doesn't have a website or even a blog so I can't link there for you. You can Goggle her name and find other sites that show photos of her work however. She must have ordered these letter tiles for her signature. And I love the little dancing skelly with a heart.


I spoke with Colleen for a brief bit. Signed up on a mailing list for a possible class in the autumn. I so hope the timing works for me to take it. I've been a frustrated in-my-head mosaic artist for years. The only mosaics I ever attempted got left outside unfinished and with no grout, fell apart through a series of rains.

She said the tile and other pieces for this work were partially donations. It's like dozens of single pieces that also make a cohesive whole. I could have spent a lot more time finding all the pretties hidden in her design. Had to take a photo of the lady bug parade for Joli.


The top of the fountain. It was mottled shade, difficult conditions for photographing, and yet it fits the mosaic well, makes it difficult to tell where the mosaic ends and the shadows begin.

And the bottom of the fountain. Silly me didn't take a photo of the whole thing. Sheesh.

At the foot of the drinking fountain.... was it a drinking fountain? Didn't photograph that either, but hmmmm, I'm certain it was there..... anyway, these embedded keys were one of my favorite bits.


Another favorite, agates and spirals hidden on the back side of the wall that curved behind the benches. Forgot to go to macro so it's not the best photo. I was pretty blown away by it and a little distracted.

The other free standing animal, a friendly green frog. Or is he a toad?

A section of the beautiful back of the sculpture. I thought those shimmery white tiles in with the blue were glass that you could see through but now I realize that can't be possible. Maybe they were mirrored tiles. I guess I'll have to go back and look again.

Yesterday's pics didn't open for me like I'd hoped so I tried a new technique today, knock on wood. If you can open the photos to a larger size, you'll see that square tile says "Prepare the child for the path, not the path for the child." That confuses me. I'm not sure if I agree. Maybe I'm hearing the intent wrong. It sounds sort of "Mold the child to fit the path" to me. What about Thoreau's different drummer or Frost's road less traveled?

Oh no! Watch out little green ladybug!

The center of the wall is this gorgeous butterfly. I like that I unknowingly captured Sam and Ashley in the background.

A coolio bat.

A dragon fly with glowing green eyes.

It makes me want to run out and make a dozen of these gorgeous mosaic balls. I wonder what the middle is made out of? Do they make cement balls? Okay, here's where you can stop and make ball jokes. I'll wait......

It makes me want to collect all these wonderful different bits and pieces. Much to the family's consternation, I already have a huge pile of broken ceramic and glass stored in the backyard. I have it in my head to have a mosaic making day or weekend with others. I have no idea who these "others" might be. And there's the little thing of having to put my backyard back together again. It's rather Humpty Dumpty after the fall-ish at the moment. We'll see if I can do what all the king's horses and all the king's men could not.


Okay, blogging is hard work. After all that chatter, I think you can leave me here to sit a spell. You can check out Beach Treasure. I think I'm going on about books again over there.