Archive for August, 2010
London Calling (2007)
(This entry is part of a look at early mosaics I’ve made).
London Calling to the far away towns…
Such a great album, great song, GREAT album cover. Decided to make this mosaic while looking at iconic album covers. After a bit of searching, I found a landscape image that really popped, and set to work. I didn’t have any pink LEGO at the time, so i substituted red. Due to the scale, the background details are lost, but on the whole, it turned out pretty well. It’s still one of the most talked about and appreciated of the mosaics I’ve built.
And for comparison, here is the album cover.
The contrast in the original is fantastic, lending itself extremely well to being “mosaicized”. If I rebuilt this, I’d probably add a shadow line to separate the guitar from the background a bit more, and consider adding “The Clash” near the top.
This closeup reveals one of the lesser used secrets in the “greyscale” world: “brown”. It gives you a extra place to go, and another tone between the greys and blacks. (LEGO actually changed their light and dark greys over the years, so it’s possible to track down enough brick to be able to have each in the palette, which would give you (including brown) 7 colors. It’s possible there’s another brown shade out there too. Anyways, enough chatter about brown.
This shot shows the “standing up” of the piece. It always gives a different angle, and a different look to things. I was pretty happy with how close to the original this one turned out. It was also the first mosaic I had built that had a picture requested for a flickr group.
Watch out Finny!
Thanks for checking out my work, and for visiting the website. I’m still taking on conmissioned works for the fall and winter, drop me a line if you’re interested.
Bogart (2007)
(This entry is part of a look at early mosaics I’ve made).
For the next project, I decided to look for icon black and white protraits, and found one of Bogart that I really liked.
i used a different diffusion, less of the “x” pixelation to create detail, and more use of “like colours”, which tend to make things more realistic, but less detailed.
I set off to work, and over the course of a few nights, had most of the face complete.
Now, you’re probably asking yourself “what’s up with the parrot-like colours on bogey’s cheek”? Well, here’s the story. My erstwhile assistant, Finny, decided to add to the mosaic one day, while I wasn’t around. I saw it, and it made me laugh. And then, for whatever reason, I decided to leave it in. Call it “artist’s prerogative”, call it “found art”, call it what you will. It stays.
A shot from the side, you can see the “parrot” more clearly here. It’s always interesting to me that the pictures taken of the mosaics can be so different, as they’re all of the same work. The most interesting thing is that the pictures often come out better than the actual pieces. I suspect it has something to do with pixelization, and how your brain makes sense of the images.
Finn poses with the work, mouth stuffed with cookie. I took these shots at the middle landing of the basement stairs, as I could get far enough away to take the shot, without a lot of other stuff in the picture.
The Bogart mosaic is still one of my favorites, for it’s simplicity and design. It was around this point that my “style” became greyscale photo mosaics. There was another defining style to come, but we’ll get to that about 4 entries from now. Thanks for taking an interest, and come back often!
Albert (2007)
(This entry is part of a look at early mosaics I’ve made).
My good friend Albert Howell, comedian, star of stage and screen, and comedy writer, jokingly suggested that I make a mosaic of him. So, I did. I think it turned out very well, and taught me more still about portraits and shadowing.
I usually don’t like the “side by side” comparison. Other people are amazed at how close the picture is, etc, but having spend hours staring at the pictures, I usually just see the flaws and what I’ve missed. (In this one, Al’s hair bleeds into the shadow behind him).
As usual, I took a few pictures with Finny sitting on or near the piece, to add scale. It occurs to me now that as he gets bigger, I’ll need to either make bigger mosaics, or accept that the scale will be less impressive.
I also experimented with building up parts of the mosaic to make it a bit more 3D. I didn’t think it really added much, and it seemed weird, so I stopped.
As Albert is “Canadian Famous”, he didn’t actually purchase the mosaic, but I made up for that by renting space to a fellow who wanted to build a castle. I think this makes this mosaic fairly unique, as I can’t think of any other LEGO creation that uses a portrait as it’s baseplate.
Thanks for visiting and allowing me to ramble on about the work. Hope you enjoyed it, and as always, Brickwares is available for custom mosaics. You can’t buy THIS mosaic, as it’s of Albert, and that would be weird. Oh, unless you ARE Albert, or maybe his parents, possibly his sister. Otherwise, it’s right out. Contact me at dave@brickwares.com if you have any questions.
Zach (2007)
(This entry is part of a look at early mosaics I’ve made).
One of my brilliant ideas early on was to create a LEGO mosaic portrait of a celebrity who was web-saavy and therefore likely to stumble across the photos, be amazed and flattered, and purchase it immediately. It totally worked. Well, except for the stumbling, flattery, and purchase parts.
When I was searching for black and white portrait images, I came across a photo of Zach Braff from “Scrubs”. I was a big fan of the show, and decided to make the picture into a mosaic. This one used a bit of cross-hatching, and made use of shadow and light. I like how it turned out, but I think the “commercialism” of it makes me a bit, well, ashamed of this piece. Not of the result, of course, but of the fact that I let the commercial aspect call the shots. Also, I then have to explain it to whomever is looking through the pics, and convince them i’m not a celebrity stalker or anything.
I’ve been faced with that decision a few times since, and I find that when I choose “art”, things generally work out better. One thing that I learned early on, is that when you spend between 40-100 hours (spread out over evenings throughout a month) on a piece, you HAVE to be inspired by the image, otherwise it becomes a grind, and isn’t fun at all.
“Shh Zach, don’t say anything. It will be our secret.”
The biggest positive that came out of this piece is that it made me want to make more portraits, and that led to one of my 2 favorite mosaics. But more on that later.
Thanks for visiting and allowing me to ramble on about the work. Hope you enjoyed it, and as always, Brickwares is available for custom mosaics. contact me at dave@brickwares.com if you have any questions.
Day and Night (2007)
(This entry is part of a look at early mosaics I’ve made).
After an attempt at “fine art”, and some success with a gray scale palette, I decided to combine the two. I’ve always been a fan of M.C. Escher, his work challenges the eye and the mind. I own a print of “Day and Night”, and set out to recreate it in brick. In some ways, it was very easy, as the design lends itself to a mosaic, and with so few colors to manage, it made for fairly quick work. Upon seeing the pictures of this mosaic I’ve had people tell me they hadn’t realized it was made of LEGO, which is a compliment, I guess.
A close up look at the “day” side. In this shot, you can make out some of the larger bricks. I’ve always used various sizes in my pieces, never liked the conformity of having to use only 1×1. For that matter, most people tend to use 1×1 plates, and I’m about as far from that as I can get. Sometimes it’s worked against me, with larger mosaics the weight factor definitely becomes an issue, but for the time being, I have no plans to change the way I work.
F poses with the piece, adds scale. This mosaic didn’t take an exceptionally long time, though it did have some challenges. Lots of small areas, and it was tricky to ensure the scale and “offset” was right in places, especially the bird section.
Thanks for checking out the piece, hope you enjoyed it.