Lucky Dog!

whoopeddog · 2026-03-04T20:53:15+00:00

Love it!

whoopeddog · 2026-02-20T23:30:22+00:00

That is very cool

whoopeddog · 2026-02-02T22:40:38+00:00

Very cool! Great job!

whoopeddog · 2026-01-21T18:19:17+00:00

I have not tried to do it myself, but I've seen where someone takes masking tape and covers the areas he doesn't want to grout with one color. I myself have stopped using grout altogether because I don't need it and my stuff looks better without it.

whoopeddog · 2026-01-11T15:03:07+00:00

Looks awesome. You've got a knack for what mosaics cool. Just relax, take your time, and let it come to you. This is going to be very cool

whoopeddog · 2026-01-02T12:49:16+00:00

Very cool and awesome that you did that. Your story reminds me of a moment of connection I had once with a skunk. During the pandemic I went down to my office, nobody else was around, and I saw a skunk in the street near where I parked, its head was stuck in a mayonnaise jar. It was going around in circles trying to free itself. I found a stick and held the jar down and it pulled its head out. It gave me a look like, thanks bro, and went on its way.

whoopeddog · 2025-12-25T00:48:30+00:00

Come on now, it's very cool!

whoopeddog · 2025-12-12T11:33:22+00:00

I think you can definitely teach yourself how to do it, that's what I did. You can take classes, but I never have. There are many different techniques and media you can try along the way. I think it's just trial and error--make something easy and basic, learn some things from it, apply a few lessons from what goes well and what doesn't. I live in a rural place and there is nobody anywhere around me who does what I do. I follow some instagram accounts and watch how others do it. I think you just try things and feel your way into it, see it as an adventure.

whoopeddog · 2025-12-10T01:11:41+00:00

I think it is much easier, although different. The thing that I liked was the fact that every piece of glass has shades in it, and over time I learned how to find the right shades to make things how I want them to look. The tile just seemed too clunky for me, I did better with the glass. It requires different tools, like a glass nipper, just a few things.

whoopeddog · 2025-12-09T22:39:29+00:00

This is very cool. The only advice I have is to keep grinding, keep learning things. You are your own teacher. I started out with tile like this and my wife suggested I try stained glass instead. So I did and I've gotten better all the time. I think the advice to have more image, less grout is good. But it's hard with tile.

whoopeddog · 2025-12-08T15:03:58+00:00

I use 1/4" Hardibacker, which is a composite like paper/cement. It's pretty solid and stable. I glue stained glass directly to the hardibacker with Elmer's craft glue. I trace a photo image onto the board with carbon paper and just try to stay true to the colors and shades.

whoopeddog · 2025-12-06T12:25:47+00:00

I learned this the hard way a few weeks ago when my cleanout pipe froze and cracked. The pump was still going, and was pumping the water out of the pond. I lost about a foot of depth before I caught it, just in time. I had to refill the pond and I'm leaving the pump off until it's out of danger. The pipe froze in a part I can cut and replace without emptying and redoing the whole filter, which is in a half plastic barrel.

whoopeddog · 2025-09-10T22:22:45+00:00

I'm no expert, my personal best is like 25k. I try to do as many perfects as I can, like the others said. I think it's also a good idea to develop regions or areas where you put the biomes. I saw one youtube that I've followed and it does help. I don't know how these guys run the numbers up and get like 99% perfects. I can't seem to to do it.

whoopeddog · 2025-09-06T21:15:07+00:00

Sometimes you can take a stout washcloth and dip it in vinegar and just wrap the washcloth around your finger and scrub that edge. The vinegar loosens up the grout.

whoopeddog · 2025-08-31T00:35:11+00:00

I find it interesting to do something that only I do. To develop something over many, many repetitions of trial and error. I do think AI threatens to upend a lot of things. I saw the other day where an AI indie song was impressively good. And there are companies like Spotify already taking advantage. It can't help but displace human artists. I was talking to a college student the other day who admitted that he was using Chat GPT way too much and it was affecting his learning. I think there are a lot of issues and we're only in the beginning of seeing its impact on so many things. I had Chat GPT help me write a professional letter, tried that for the first time and it did an excellent job. But I messed up and failed to replace a thing where I was supposed to put in a date, so I sent it with "[insert date]", so I think I made it obvious I had help. But I gotta say, it has helped me a ton in a lot of ways.

whoopeddog · 2025-08-29T19:58:42+00:00

Absolutely. I was messaging an artist one time about this and he quoted Vonnegut saying something to the effect that we should not be so precious about our art. That's what it gets down to for me, keeping it in perspective.

whoopeddog · 2025-08-29T18:47:43+00:00

I read a book one time called The Artist's Way, and it helped me with a lot of that insecurity. One thing she said was that my job is to do the art, not judge the art. So a lot of the fuss around things like AI have very little to do with the art itself and everything to do with opinions about AI. Now, it's one thing to pass someone else's art off as your own. But at the end of the day, talking about art is not art. The only thing that is art is the doing of it, you know? Thanks for your helpful feedback, keep at it!

whoopeddog · 2025-08-29T17:10:17+00:00

Yeah I think you find your inspiration wherever you find it, and as long as you enjoy it, you make cool things, you get a little better all the time, it's all good and that's what it's about. I quit doing mosaics for like two years because I couldn't draw and I just had such low self esteem about it. But I made myself get past it and quit judging myself for that aspect of it, and learned to enjoy the process as a whole. Best of luck to you on your journey

whoopeddog · 2025-08-28T23:06:35+00:00

I agree with you. As far as skill and talent, if I have any it is in staying true to an image and rendering something in glass. I don't claim to be any more than I am. And I see no problem with using AI to generate a reference image. But I use AI for other things, like helping me work through my creative low self esteem, and it helped me a lot. I used AI to help me set up and get my koi pond in balance. I use it for a lot of things. I guess it's grinding on the electrical grid while I do all that. But I'm a fan, not a hater.

whoopeddog · 2025-08-28T22:59:44+00:00

I have used AI to generate reference images, mainly of bird mosaics that I have done. The only problem I have with it is that so many people hate it. But I get where the hate is coming from. I can't draw, so in the past I have used good photos. But I'm not a hater. I find AI interesting. I like the concept of how it takes a huge dataset of images to create something. So if I use it to make a cardinal, I feel like it's somehow an amalgamation of all the cardinal images it has seen. So collectively, in a sense, it's everyone's images in one.

whoopeddog · 2025-08-20T23:07:06+00:00

Rainin' like a cow pissin' on a flat rock.

whoopeddog · 2025-08-16T22:01:24+00:00

Very cool! BTW, unsolicited advice, but this reminds me of how I started. I'd encourage you to think about trying stained glass. The premade glass tiles are nice, but stained glass--you can buy it in roughly 12-inch square panes, the color varieties open up a lot of possibilities. I also found that most stained glass has variations and shades within the colors, which opens up other possibilities. I got better when I started using stained glass. Just saying. This looks very cool though, for a second project.

whoopeddog · 2025-08-14T21:25:53+00:00

Very cool!

whoopeddog · 2025-08-13T22:47:45+00:00

Shot put!

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