| » Forum Index » The Friday Challenge » Topic: Challenge 991: The mosaicist |
|
Posted on 09/02/24 08:36:18 AM |
|
Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 6942 Reply  |
Challenge 991: The mosaicist
Back to La Rochelle for this week's Challenge: I don’t know when or why Monsieur Beauplet shut up shop, but it could be down to his lacklustre window display. Surely a master of mosaics would benefit from a better demonstration of his skills. High res is here.  |
Posted on 09/02/24 10:52:50 AM |
|
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5357 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
This is one of those occasions when french manages to sound so much grander than english, especially when expressed with a nice old fashioned typeface. In english M. Bauplet's profession would probably be described with the rather more prosaic 'tiling and cement rendering'. Do I sense a never before used Photoshop filter on the horizon? _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 09/02/24 2:15:27 PM |
|
Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 6942 Reply |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
Yes, but note his artful mosaic signage. |
Posted on 09/02/24 3:05:59 PM |
|
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5357 Reply |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
Yes .... which leads to this quickie. It's not terribly clever - just objects dropped in. However I am posting it because there is an interesting(ish) story attached. 
In 1971 when I was just 28 I attended an auction of architectural salvage. There in a dusty corner I found three wooden crates. Two contained stone slabs with the partial remains of a mosaic stuck to them. The third contained a mass of jumbled broken mouldings and hundreds of fragments of broken mosaic. The auctioneers had no idea as to its origins and certainly weren't prepared to say whether the remains were complete or whether so much was missing that it might just be a jumble of rubbish. When It came to the bidding nobody showed any interest so, completely on the spur of the moment, I put in a very low bid and found myself suddenly the owner of a very heavy alabaster and ceramic jigsaw! I laid it out on a bench in my workroom and started to try and assemble it. It soon became evident that it was far from complete and had once had a third panel. However it did look as if, although I could never achieve a proper restoration, and certainly not an authentic one, I could nonetheless rescue enough to put together a twin panel that could never be in its original form but which could nonetheless make visual sense. Over the next two and half years I visited it from time to time and slowly and painstakingly assembled it until I had something whole enough to go on to the next stage of setting the hundreds of tiny pieces in a thin layer of plaster applied to the stone slabs. By the time I was finished it was clear there was a lot missing from the original. There was still quite a bit left over but nothing that could be used in any meaningful way. Before I started I had an engineer friend weld together a steel frame into which the slabs were set first to create an integral whole that could be handled and moved once finished. The finished mosaic with its alabaster framings and solid stone backings was so heavy it needed one of those hand pumped forklifts to move it and manual handling needed four strong men! It has graced my three homes since I completed its assembly and in all of them the wall had to be specially reinforced to take the weight. 
By the time I had finished it was apparent that this a was a memorial tablet to a James Augustus - Archdeacon of Middlesex. More recently, thanks to the internet, I have been able to find out a little more. I discovered that amongst the missing material was the gentleman's surname. My slab reads James Augustus as enough of the fragments were clinging together to make this clear that the names were in this order. It turns out now that the tablet is actually in memory of James Augustus Hessey (1814- 1892) but the Hessey was missing from my fragments. He was a notable cleric and educationalist and was, for a while, the headmaster of Merchant Tailors' School. It may seem a bit bizarre to keep an obituary tablet as a decoration and, since it the first thing you see when entering the apartment, it certainly gives pause to people visiting for the first time, wondering just what kind of household they are about to visit! But I find it a very lovely object and a fine example of the English Pre-Raphaelite and Art Nouveau movements of that time. One expert from Sotheby's gave it as his opinion that it comes from the workshop of William Morris. I would love to think so, but there is no evidence to support this except his personal opinion based upon style and technique. So there we are .... an odd story for an odd object. Apologies Steve for going so far off topic but it seemed so appropriate for the challenge. I appreciate this may be a lot less fascinating for some of you than it is for me, so please forgive me if I have bored the pants off you. _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 09/02/24 6:20:54 PM |
|
lwc
Hole in One Posts: 3012 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
Not boring at all David, I found it most interesting. I have to admire your patience and perseverance, there is no way I could have stayed with that… a lovely work indeed. |
Posted on 09/02/24 9:20:12 PM |
|
Mariner
Renaissance Mariner Posts: 2918 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
Yes, David, very interesting. Perseverance is your middle name. |
Posted on 10/02/24 01:42:49 AM |
|
lwc
Hole in One Posts: 3012 Reply |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
Character courtesy of photoshop.london |
Posted on 10/02/24 07:07:35 AM |
|
Ben Boardman
Printing Pro Posts: 562 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
 |
Posted on 10/02/24 09:42:28 AM |
|
Ben Boardman
Printing Pro Posts: 562 Reply |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
 |
Posted on 10/02/24 4:34:37 PM |
|
michael sinclair
Off-Topic Opportunist Posts: 1820 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
Very beautiful artefact/ornament David, and you might like to show us full-on without the lights or table clutter. I can see where you are trying to go on your artwork. Maybe your door doesn't match, and maybe a bit more work on it 
Very nice Loyd, but I'm going to have to give you a traffic ticket for not having A SHADOW underneath the car. 
Ben absolutely amazing: you can't tell it's a fake, and in my book not making it look a fake separates the men from the boys. 
Mr Caplin is incorrect that Gaston has shut down: he has merely relocated to the town square, and the camera doesn't lie, does it? NOW UPDATED now 178 framer instead of 29 
|
Posted on 10/02/24 6:49:31 PM |
|
Ant Snell
Specular Specialist Posts: 537 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
A business must diversify these days to stay open  |
Posted on 10/02/24 10:15:18 PM |
|
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5357 Reply |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
A quickie Michael. Yes it could do with a bit of refining. _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 10/02/24 10:21:16 PM |
|
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5357 Reply |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
Ben I love your second entry. A real surprise! _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 10/02/24 10:24:04 PM |
|
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5357 Reply |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
Ant .... yet again!! After a long time working on my image I came to post and found once more we seem to be thinking in parallel. _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 10/02/24 10:38:57 PM |
|
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5357 Reply |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
Gaston has retired and his daughter has taken over the business and modernised. I discovered that mosaics can be very tricky. If they have small tiles and you turn them oblique so the tiles are changing size with the perspective, you can get really screwed by moiré patterns. I had to modify mine to stay more or less face to camera. It's easy enough to guess but the sign translates as "Genuine laser cut mosaics from your special photo! Instant quote www.beauplatmosaique.com" 
Thanks to Photoshop London for the new manager. _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 11/02/24 00:48:51 AM |
|
Ben Boardman
Printing Pro Posts: 562 Reply |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
Thank you Michael & David. By coincidence this mosaic mural, 80 metres long and 7 metres tall, was opened in Charters Towers, Queensland, this weekend.  |
Posted on 11/02/24 11:12:46 PM |
|
michael sinclair
Off-Topic Opportunist Posts: 1820 Reply |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
I have updated my crowd in the square, and now you have 178 frames instead of 29 which mitigates the "twitching"! Moreover, You can now see there is no more funny business below the waists. This is a quickie an experiment if you like: It seems like the vandals have torched the place
UPDATED 
|
Posted on 12/02/24 05:06:35 AM |
|
Ben Boardman
Printing Pro Posts: 562 Reply |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
 |
Posted on 12/02/24 12:00:31 PM |
|
lwc
Hole in One Posts: 3012 Reply |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
Look again, the shadow is now there. How about just a warning ticket? Adding the shadow took it to over 20mb, so I had to make some other adjustments to get it down to 19mb. It is what it is... |
Posted on 15/02/24 01:11:22 AM |
|
tooquilos
Wizard of Oz Posts: 2863 Reply  |
Re: Challenge 991: The mosaicist
http://vimeo.com/913131168 I'm not entirely sure about the extended one but I'll submit it anyway. Such an interesting story, David and an extremely beautiful piece of art. Your patience in putting it all together is astounding - a jigsaw puzzle without a starting image. And I love your lamp too.  _________________ Wicked Witch of the West: I'm melting! I'm melting! |
| page: 1 2 last |