Stone and Wood

I started with what I had in the house - left over ceramic floor tiles and scrap 3/4 in plywood. There was the glue I needed to buy (acquired at Lowe's) and the grout, I bought those. And the tile pinchers or nippers or whatever they're called, also needed to be purchased. Those I found at my local hardware store. The ones with the spring and the plastic coated handle seemed best.

My plan was to just start gluing stuff and see what happened. My floor tile, the remains of two former tiling projects, were 16 x 16 in and 1/4 thick. I had dark bronze colored ones and light, sort of a creamy white colored ones. Using a sledge hammer, I broke one tile of each color into small pieces. They broke like a piece of glass, angled and curved with some chips and powdered fragments. Then with a small hammer, I broke the larger pieces into a more manageable size.

Breaking the tiles was very satisfying, particularly after a long day at work.

After that, I just started sticking pieces onto the wood in a pattern that I thought was appealing. First I would lay several out next to each other, in the way that seemed to look the best. Then I would add a small amount of glue to the back of the pieces and stuck them on the plywood.

I was particularly pleased with the swooping curve from upper left to the lower right. If you look carefully, there's sort of a bird-like image in the right lower corner. I didn't really plan on that, it just happened. Actually, I didn't plan on anything, and that led to trouble later on.

I'll post a picture of the 'final' product, which remains unfinished, because of a fatal flaw.