Mosaic

THE BANKS MOSAIC

When The Banks became the official end of The Hadrian's Wall Trail and the Bowness on Solway Community Group gained a Local Heritage Lottery Grant, it was decided that one of the projects would be a Roman-style mosaic on the floor of the Shelter.

The mosaic was created from the drawings of the bird life on the Solway that were drawn by the children of Bowness on Solway Primary School. The project artist, Gilly Walton, selected and collaged the drawings into a scaled down design. She then enlarged the drawing to full size - but back to front! - onto strong brown parcel paper via the indirect method, using ceramic and glass mosaic tiles, which were cut to shape with mosaic nippers. These were placed and stuck right-side down using wallpaper paste. This method enabled the artist to work off-site and also allowed the children and local people to learn the art of mosaic making.

It was then installed in the shelter after drawing the design in chalk and then placed section by section with the brown parcel paper side up using tile cement (as used in swimming pools). When the cement was dry the brown paper was soaked off revealing the finished image. After the cement had dried the mosaic was grouted which brings the design together. It was a very enjoyable project and a very steep learning curve!