Efflorescence: The grouters nightmare!

You make a beautiful mosaic, grout it, and then the next day there is white powdery streaks running down off of the grout.  What a mess!  What is this white stuff?  How do I get rid of it??  The white stuff is called efflorescence.  It happens most often when you apply grout in moist and cool conditions.  In my case, I grouted between rains when it was foggy but dry.  The fountain showed no signs of white streaks and was sent out on a truck.  A few days later I went down to do finishing touches on it and saw this:

Those lighter streaks are efflorescence coming off of the grout on the dragonfly mosaic.  If this happens to you, don't panic!  Head over to the cleaning section of your local drug store and pick up some Lime Away .  I'm not sure if other Calcium removing products work, but If they contain similar ingredients they should. Efflorescence is basically Calcium that is leached out of the cement by the grout and surrounding moisture. Pat the white areas with a Lime Away soaked paper towel while wearing gloves.  Better yet, just follow the package directions! This case was stubborn and took several passes but finally came off.

Incoming Help: wear gloves!

 All better now!

Custom Signature Tiles!

I made these custom signature tiles for Laurel True.  Half of them were in Haitian and half in English.  Contact me with ideas and questions!  Don't let your work go unsigned!  I have custom color glazes, shapes, alphabet stamps.

Glow Tiles hit Youtube!

See my fun glow tiles in action! New video!

Haiti donor tiles fit perfectly!

These carefully sized donor tiles were made to size because Laurel True (mosaic maestro magnifico) had left perfect oval holes in her mosaic to put them into later. She sent me some tracing paper sketches and they magically shrunk perfectly to size. Phew! Hooray! These can now be seen in the new Paul Farmer hospital in Mirebelais, Haiti. This is a really great project for a really deserving community. Partners in Health (PIH) offers free healthcare to those in need!

SF Mission: Radical Badical Arts Scene

The San Francisco Mission District is so awesome with all of it's brightly colored murals. I was there recently visiting a friend who lives right in the heart of the mission 1 block from this awesome ceramic mural:

This mural is on a wall of a small kids park that includes an ornately mosaicked dragon kids can climb on. It's tropical and made mostly of handmade ceramic tile. Beautiful!

New Abstract Tile Line up on Rebeltiles.com!

Rebel Tiles has a new abstract tile line available!

They have In-Stock Abstract tiles and a whole slew of abstract tiles that you can order with a custom color in their Custom Abstract Skin Line.

Curses!

I started exploring the Winter attitude that was overtaking me. Recession, depression, disinterest, malaise, and a general uninspired blah settled. And then I got it! The Cursory Mosaic line! I didn't get a lot of interest in these, which is perfect because they stem from overwhelming disinterest! But I still don't get it. These are groundbreaking! I'm sick of people always assuming mosaics are cute hobby based craft. I like toothy dragons and bears, obscenity, and revolution once in a while. Well, I hope I don't cut my own throat with these. There's a bunch more where these came from.