Leo, Rainbow Chimps, and Burning Bright

Mosaic/Mixed media, glass, stones, ceramics, beads

Methods: draw, glue, grout

Inspiration: Stuck at home with nothing to do, I resorted to spending much of my time making mosaics. It kept me sane, and opened up a whole new world for me, even as I was unable to leave my house. I love wildlife imagery, but the first week of the lockdown, I found I didn't have enough tiles to make a naturalistic mosaic of chimpanzees that I had planned. Ordering supplies was out of the question, so I improvised by using the tiles I had on hand to create something upbeat during what felt like the end of the world. I decided to make each chimp a different color, resulting in Rainbow Chimps. I donated this for a fundraiser for the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. I then used what I had on hand - tiles, beads, shells, and odd ceramic pieces -  to create a majestic lion, partly inspired by the paintings of Fritz Hugg, an artist whose wildlife paintings were popular in the 1970s. My parents bought a print of a tiger painting done by Hugg, which was one of my favorite things on our walls. I had always hoped I would end up with it, but neither my sister nor I know what happened to it after our parents died. In the fall of 2020, I decided to make my own tiger portrait in the spirit of Hugg's work, so I could have a tiger with a red background on my walls.