Mosaic Triptych
In the fall of 2016, I had another opportunity to work with fourth grade students on a mosaic project. This year our subject, also going along with local history, was the Erie Canal. For this project, the students looked at historical photos of the Erie Canal in fort Plain, NY. They chose three photos in which to be the subjects of their mosaics. There are three 4th grade classes and this year they chose to create a triptych. Each class worked on one piece of the triptych.
After the photos were selected, I enlarged them and made a mosaic cartoon.
This is one of the mosaic cartoons for the mosaics.
The students worked on the mosaics from October through December 2016. I prepared the tesserae for each section of the mosaics and outlined each area with the tesserae to be used in that section. This gave the students a guide to the way the tile would be placed. Almost like color by number.
This is the Erie Canal Store. This building no longer exists in this location. It was disassembled and brought the the New York State Museum for reassembling. But recently, it was moved back to Fort Plain for reassembling and will be on display at the Fort Plain Museum.
This piece is the aqueduct, part of the Erie Canal, located in Fort Plain, NY
This mosaic depicts the lift bridge, once located in Fort Plain, but is no longer in existence. The lift bridge is similar to a drawbridge, except that it lifts in one piece, to allow canal boats to pass under, rather than raising in two pieces like a drawbridge.
The three mosaics look beautiful. They will be displayed together, like this at Harry Hoag Elementary School in Fort Plain, NY
For more information and photos go to:
This project was made possible by Saratoga Arts and New York State council on the Arts
