Wednesday, May 04, 2011

How to Mosaic Like a Ravennan in 8 Simple Steps

Today I got to tell one of my students about the mosaics in Ravenna. We were doing this exercise that mentioned them - something about "How many tiles might there be in the mosaics of Ravenna?" And the answer would be millions and millions, of course. Ravenna. What a wonderful city. Seriously. Glazed tile mosaics. I don't know how to improve on that idea. What a glow.

Would you like to know how to make a glazed tile mosaic? Here are instructions, straight from Ravenna. First, your tools and materials:


Now, the eight easy-to-follow steps:


And when you're done, it should look like this:

or this:



or maybe this:



Yeah.

I bought a scarf with the pattern of the arch on that last one. Gotta love a good gift shop.

Wow. So Ravenna is definitely a city to visit. Shed a tear for Dante's exile, see some amazing art, ride a bicycle around the city center for free, and maybe if you're lucky the woman selling candied almonds that are so very fresh and tasty will be out by the piazza when you are wandering around at night.

Must finish my plans for discussing some Hobbes in class tomorrow, so again I leave you with a referential song of the day.

Midlake - Head Home

2 comments:

ROTFLMAO said...

oh, come on.
ravenna is way boring. and way too small.
but i did enjoy your post :)

Izzybella said...

I'm pretty sure my mosiac wouldn't look like that. By pretty sure, I mean NO FRICKEN' WAY. Just saying.