Rainbow smalti; marble and stone study

You know how there is always someone in class who seems to know just what to do, finishes way ahead of everybody, then starts and finishes a new project while everybody else is still laboring away on their first one? This weekend, for the first time ever, that was me.

I jammed through my first 8" x 8" smalti piece using the starter pack provided, plus whatever I could scrounge from the instructor's pack, as well as some of her dichroic glass scraps and a couple smalti swaps with fellow students. Here's how far I'd gotten at the end of the first day of class:



On Day 2, I finished, with hours to spare:



Instructor and mosaic artist extraordinaire, Laurel True, suggested I do another smaller piece using mixed media. Then she pulled out bins of stone, marble, ceramic tile, glass blobs and stained glass. I wavered between the stained glass and stone, ultimately deciding not to choose:



I was hoping I wouldn't much like smalti, as it's expensive, but that's not what happened. It was a blast! So was the marble and stone I used. The dichroic glass is magic.

Which means every material I've used so far has been my favorite.

Did I mention that dichroic glass is even more expensive than smalti?