Mosaic magic: bringing a maiden to life in tiles

Inspiration for a mosaic can come in many forms. These include floral patterns, animals, landscapes, abstract shapes, and captured urban scenes. Or perhaps from something slightly different. As a child, I watched the movie ‘The King and I’. I was instantly mesmerised by the the King and Anna dancing. Seeing Anna’s sweeping, soaring ballgown as she danced effortlessly with the King across the ballroom, was a sight to behold. I began to wonder, how I could recreate this ballgown and bring a mosaic maiden to life in tiles?

I learnt how to design and create a garment as a fashion design student many years ago. As a former student I was not a fan of all the intricate fashion design details. I wanted to find a way to showcase a ballgown’s beauty using mosaics. I spied a painting of a ballgown that showcased the skirt beautifully. Yes! This was the main feature of the dress!

Designing the mosaic maiden ready for tiles

The factors needed when creating the maiden mosaic design include:

• Inspiration & theme – images, fabrics, colours, and textures to inspire the vintage theme to develop a maiden mosaic in tiles.
• Sketching the silhouette – selecting a pose and drawing a basic outline of a human figure in the garment. I chose the back of the ballgown. This angle added extra highlights to how the fabric fits, drapes, and moves. 
• Hand placement – I opted for the hands to be either sitting outwards on the maiden. This option gave the impression the maiden was about to take a bow. The other pose used was hands resting in front.    
• Designing the garment – I did not need to include intricate detail related to the construction of the garment. I focused on seams, folds, embellishments and skirt design. 
• Colours and texture – I selected colours that focused on the vintage theme such pale blue, petal pink, and delicate apricot.
• Background – I used a simple background colour to allow the maiden to be the centrepiece. The ballgown design colour provided inspiration for the background colour.

Delicate apricot maiden

Random yellow highlights in the skirt contrasted with the apricot and smoky grey colours. Mustard coloured crockery plates at the base of the skirt with tiny millefiore created bold statement and a dimensional effect.

The black gloves provided the final sharp contrast. The textured white background with opposing lines did not detract from the ballgown. I used a decorative ceramic lid from an old perfume holder to subtly recreate a hairstyle of days gone by.   

Blue lace mosaic maiden

Amongst my mosaic crockery collection was a pretty cake display featuring plate an intricate lace pattern. I instantly knew I wanted to create something pretty an feminine. Enter my mosaic maiden made with tiles!

To highlight the features of the lace crockery, I knew I needed to incorporate some other elements. The ballgown skirt was finished with graduated apricot coloured tiles. Red flowers were used to complete the skirt and head dress.

Pre-cut silver mosaic tiles for the background help to compliment the lacy skirt and apricot coloured skirt trim.

Chequered tiles maiden

I wanted to create a ballgown skirt made with different coloured square tiles. I selected the vintage pattern plates first, followed by the contrasting green, blues and yellow for random colour placement.

A large jewelry bead down the back and the bold gold hat, highlighted the tan colour in the gloves. Black from the skirt colour was used for the background. This allowed the maiden to move to the front.  

Petal pink maiden

I wanted to reproduce material gathering at the base of the ballgown. The different shades of pink to gave the design some dimension. I used a multi pastel coloured plate to produce a voluminous skirt to sit underneath the principal pink ballgown. I set this against a gold patterned bodice.

Bold coloured jewelry accentuated the ballgown, finished with an apple inspired head piece. As part of the pastel coloured theme, the maiden was placed with a textured light blue background.     

Flowers of blue maiden

A simple design that followed the curves of ballgown skirt to showcase flowers from a plate. Drawing on the colours featured in the flowers, jewelry was used to create a bold backpiece and head dress that used red flowers.  

Turning the finished mosaic maidens into other products

I listed the finished mosaic maidens on Etsy. (My favourite maiden sold quickly!) I hope to one day create a larger version of the mosaic maiden – watch this space!

Once I had completed the Bonnie Christine course, I considered other design options. Wouldn’t it be a cute idea to turn the mosaic maidens into a surface pattern design and create wrapping papers?