Half Day Mosaic Art Class with Merryl Sacher

A Warm Welcome to the Portsea Gallery

You'll arrive a few minutes early so you're relaxed, have an opportunity to meet the other students and don't miss any of the important information you'll need to get started. Allison Ermogenis (the gallery owner) will be here, ready to welcome you for the day.

Choose Your Template & Colours

Choose your adventure! Select from our range of template designs - hand-picked to suit absolute beginners and seasoned mosaicists alike. Once you've chosen your layout, you can choose your dream mix of colourful tiles to start creating your masterpiece.

Demonstration and Explanation

Get ready to snip, shape, and smooth! Before you dive into your project, your amazing tutor Merryl will guide you through an easy-to-follow demonstration covering all the essential glass-working techniques. You'll get hands-on experience with practice glass to try out the basic cuts, discover how to sculpt fun custom shapes (like hearts and geometric patterns), and learn the secrets of beautiful piece placement. Plus, you can try your hand at the electric grinder to achieve a professional, silky-smooth finish!

Bring Your Vision to Life

Dive into your creation! With your templates and colours sorted, it's time to let your creativity flow on your custom mosaic piece. Merryl will be circulating, giving you personalised advice, checking your progress, and proposing alternative design techniques to make sure your project turns out beautifully. There’s no rush here; everyone works and finishes at their own comfortable pace in a relaxed, supportive atmosphere.

Bubbles and Light Lunch

Time for a relaxing break with a delicious light lunch and bubbles! It’s also a lovely moment to compare notes with your fellow students.

The Final Pieces

Perfecting your design! Feeling refreshed and inspired after lunch, it's time to place your final tiles. With everyone working at their own individual pace, guests will begin completing their tiling layout, ready for the final phase of the process.

Grouting - the Noisy, Messy Bit

Welcome to the grout studio! As you finish your tile layouts, you'll trickle over to a different, dedicated space for this wonderfully messy and noisy phase of the day. You'll receive close, 1:1 tailored guidance and supervision as you learn the art of grouting - discovering exactly how to highlight your tile choices to make your final colours truly pop. The space becomes quite lively and energetic as we use studio hairdryers to speed up the drying process.

Admire and Inspire

A moment of appreciation. Once the grouting work is complete, we'll take a relaxed step back to admire the fruits of your labour. It's a wonderful, informal moment to observe how the design layouts progressed throughout the class and to celebrate your unique results. You'll get to see firsthand how different tile placements and colour choices completely transformed the initial templates.

Now You Can Do It at Home

You'll head home with your single, beautifully finished custom mosaic piece. Best of all, because you’ve mastered the entire workflow, you'll leave with the skills, confidence, and A-to-Z knowledge needed to continue to successfully enjoy this beautiful art form on your own at home.