Developing ideas for mosaics

I have recently finished teaching a mosaic course, where we do not make any mosaics for the first two sessions. Instead we take time to plan things out, experiment and play with different ideas.

These early stages of making a mosaic, the ones where you develop your ideas and try things out, are really important. Because a finished piece of work does not appear from nowhere. Time needs to be spent thinking, researching, experimenting and planning before the first tessera gets anywhere near being stuck down.