Cosmati Blue - Stamp Collage fun and fabric design, inspired by Roman Cosmati floors

Cosmati red - a commission

Having enjoyed  completing a commission  on a theme of circles, inspired by the Cosmati floors of Rome,I made another piece along similar lines, but in different colours and a slightly different format.
The recipient of the original piece was very pleased with the choice of colours  used to make the first collage, as they were among her favourites. My  preferred colours  are blues, greens and turquoise shades so I've had great fun making a piece which I eventually hope to have printed in cotton fabric. I've found a wonderful fabric printing site, wovenmonkey.com where you can have your own designs printed on various types of cotton fabric, to the size that works best for your own design.   You can see this design below at Gloucester Guildhall from 2nd to 30th October as it is part of my  new Stamping Ground 2 exhibition. 

Cosmati Blue

Going round in circles - a recent commission for a stamp collage picture

I recently received a commission with just a few basic guidelines but leaving the final design to me! The recipient is a lady who loves designs featuring  circles and also loves bright colours including red and orange. I had fun with my compass playing around with circles of various sizes and then choosing stamps to fit my colour scheme! Remembering the Cosmati mosaic floors I'd seen in ancient churches in Rome, I found my holiday photos and printed out examples from those in San Giovanni Laterano, Santa Maria Cosmedin and Santa Maria in Trastevere.

Stamps lend themselves to this type of mosaic pattern and I was soon enjoying putting together the design using stamps from Belgium, France, Spain in various shades of red and orange, as well as British stamps for the grey marble - postal labels which I have also found to be useful in creating the sails on one of my recent ships! It's great to be able to find another use for this type of stamp which most people will just discard.  Not me of course!