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Mosaics and mosaic making information from The joy of shards Mosaics Resource

The Roman mosaic workshop

The mosaic was built up by the direct method at an afternoon outdoor workshop. The tesserae were stuck down with PVA (white craft) glue. The porous back of the ceramic tile pieces meant that they stuck very quickly to the board. Any that needed replacing had to be prised up with a screwdriver.

The mosaic making activity was very popular, and the work of placing the tesserae was enthusiastically completed within the afternoon session by dozens of children. The project was planned to make it easy for children to participate with a minimum of instruction. For example, the design was based on clear lines of regular pre-cut tiles. All that remained were those pieces that needed to be specially cut to fit the pattern. These were mainly in the border and where rows of tiles came to an end.

Roman mosaic workshop roman mosaic workshop
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