Do YOU Want Worry-Free Protection?

Are you a mosaicist and crave

worry-free protection for your beautiful art?

Look no further - LATICRETE has the answer!

SPECTRALOCK PRO Premium Grout*

Offering consistent colour that will not fade or crack, SPECTRALOCK PRO Premium Grout provides maximum stain resistance to protect your mosaic art. Choose from 40 vibrant colours with an optional DAZZLE™ component for up to 220 colour options, including metallic and glow-in-the-dark. Click here for more info and to view an installation video.

* United States Invention Patent No.: 6881768 (and other Patents)

From underlayments to grouts, LATICRETE offers a system of high-quality, easy to use products that are backed by the best warranties in the industry.

For more information about using LATICRETE in your projects, product demos, samples or technical support please contact LATICRETE UK Ltd on: 0151 486 6101, email sales@laticrete.co.uk or visit www.laticrete.co.uk

Wow the Brilliance!

Earth Cycles by the artist Sarrita King & Mosaicist Don Macdonald

30 000 hand-cut mosaics which weighs 51kg

A Truly Talented Mosaicist

Email received from Don Macdonald, on this beautiful mosaic mural.

"The Design House, One Tree Group commissioned Symmetry Mosaics to bring the stunning beauty of Sarrita King’s urban Australian Aboriginal style into the medium of mosaics.  It is 3.0m long, 1.0m high and weighs just 51kg with over 30,000 hand-cut 10x10mm Bisazza glass mosaics.  Up close the detail in the artwork is self evident and at distance the piece appears to be a painting, but in the sunlight, the subtle shade variations become more obvious and it gives the artwork life and a three dimensional perspective.  It is a micro mosaic in a macro application making it a truly fine-art piece.

Setting aside the workmanship and beauty of the design, what is so unique about this artwork is its compelling message.  It tells a timeless story of ‘connectedness’ from the original inhabitants of this ancient land for our modern world. The centre of each of the circles represents each of us and how we are surrounded by family and friends, experiences and events and each of these people and happenings blend into other people’s families and events.  As you step away from one circle and see how all the others circles are interlinked you begin to understand how all things are connected.  And then, you see how the river of life flows through all of our lives and experiences, like the life bringing waters of a meandering river in the outback.

This piece is our first promotional artwork and is the beginning of a creative collaboration between One Tree Group and Symmetry Mosaics. I’ll keep you posted with our other very exciting projects as they are completed.

Don Macdonald

Symmetry Mosaics

Tel: 07 5449 9663 / 0412 050 500

Don used LATAPOXY® SP-100 as the coloured epoxy adhesive - is a stainless, pigment free, colourfast epoxy grout for grouting floor installations of ceramic tile, brick, and stone. Cleans with water while fresh. Can be used for interior and exterior applications. Ideal for kitchen floors, counter tops, bathroom floors, malls, cafeterias, and laboratories.

For more information about using LATICRETE in your projects, product demos, samples or technical support please contact LATICRETE UK Ltd on: 0151 486 6101, email sales@laticrete.co.uk or visit www.laticrete.co.uk

Pool Mosaics

"Installed!! Blue skies in the forecast in the foreseeable future. I am SO glad to be finished with this installation, and happy that it went well, finally. Thanks to all for the helpful advice. 

Created with Mexican Smalti, kiln formed glass fish, and glow in the dark outlines on the compass. SPECRALOCK® PRO Premium Grout. 254 Platinum thin set adhesive. A couple glasses of wine to wind down and celebrate."

Dianne Sonnenberg Mosaics

For more information about using LATICRETE in your projects, product demos, samples or technical support please contact LATICRETE UK Ltd on: 0151 486 6101, email sales@laticrete.co.uk or visit www.laticrete.co.uk

Mosaic Art - It Really Glows!

Betsy Gallery wins an Award

The published article by Edhat Subscriber:

The 2014 award for Public Open Space was presented to Mosaic Artist Betsy Gallery for her mosaic of the Seal of the City of Santa Barbara, which forms part of the award given to The Sea Landing Walkway at the Santa Barbara Harbor.

Alfred Ramirez MFA installed the mosaic. Erin Carroll ASLA of Arcadia Studio was project landscape architect.

Betsy fabricated the mosaic of the Seal of the City of Santa Barbara using Dal porcelain tile. As a secret extra she put LATICRETE Glow-in-the-Dark grout behind the lighthouse windows. Take a look on a dark, but not stormy, night!

Betsy designs and fabricates mosaics in Santa Barbara for private and public clients. Click here to view the published article.

A unique design component, SPECTRALOCK® Grout DAZZLE™ adds metallic and "Glow-In-The-Dark" enhancements to SPECTRALOCK PRO Premium Grout. These high-end design elements offer limitless imaginative applications. Use DAZZLE on walls and floors. Add a metallic look to plain tile and stone. Accentuate metallic tiles, glass tiles, mosaics, stone and listellos with Dazzling colour combinations. Use DAZZLE in your pools and spas. Use Glow in your bathrooms, hallways and entryways. For use in interior and exterior applications on floors and walls.  Click here for more info and to view an installation video.

Can we interest you in a FREE sample?

For more information about using LATICRETE in your projects, product demos, samples or technical support please contact LATICRETE UK Ltd on: 0151 486 6101, email sales@laticrete.co.uk or visit www.laticrete.co.uk

Seven Days of Creation Mural

Project Spotlight

For Syverson Tile & Stone, although there were eight panels to install, they actually had 16 different areas to prepare on the one-story high vertical terrace where the murals now rest. Using the double indirect method with LATICRETE materials to transfer the paintings to the mosaic sheets and finally to the concrete masonry unit wall substrate, the collaboration came through with impressive results. 

The 16 different CMU areas were first prepped by roller applying two coats of HYDRO BAN® to provide waterproofing and anti-fracture protection. HYDRO BAN is a revolutionary, liquid-applied membrane that does not require the use of fabric† in the field, coves or corners. The single-component membrane applies quickly with a paint roller, brush or trowel, and meets or exceeds ANSI A118.10 and A118.12 requirements for both waterproofing and anti-fracture protection up to 3mm. Perhaps even more innovative than not requiring fabric even around pipe penetrations or drains on any given project, HYDRO BAN can be flood tested in just 2 hours† once the second coat has cured to a lighter olive green colour.

For each particular mural depicting the Seven Days of Creation on each panel, Syverson Tile & Stone treated the substrate for the glass mosaic sheets by applying a skim coat of 254 Platinum thin-set. When the skim-coat had cured, the pixelized SICIS mural, all boxed up and numbered accordingly, was set in place by May and Harris, sheet by sheet, beginning with the bottom rows and working up 10m to the very top edge. 254 Platinum thin-set, Stammer’s “favorite setting material,” represents the ultimate one-step, polymer-fortified thin-set adhesive mortar for interior and exterior installations such as the Mergia’s Seven Days of Creation. 254 Platinum has a long open time with unsurpassed adhesion that far exceeds all industry requirements, and the premium thin-set has been specially-formulated for easy workability in even the most trying conditions. With a proven track record on high-profile building projects around the world, 254 Platinum is ideal for challenging installations such as vertical exterior façades with difficult to bond glass mosaic tiles. 

Another revolutionary LATICRETE® product was used by Syverson Tile & Stone to grout all eight panels of the vertical terrace murals for Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Sioux Falls. To grout the mosaic sheets from SICIS consisting of three different tile collections, SPECTRALOCK® PRO Grout was used in the colour Smoke Grey, offering the high performance, durability and stain resistance of an epoxy grout with extraordinary ease of use. SPECTRALOCK PRO Grout applications result in perfect colour uniformity and full, attractive tile grout joints that stay that way for the life of the installation. Ideal for interior and exterior installations on both floors and walls, LATICRETE SPECTRALOCK PRO Grout never requires additional sealants to keep tile designs looking brand new year after year. 

The performance of SPECTRALOCK PRO Grout is magnified by how easy it is to use, a feature that once again played a critical role in the installation of the Seven Days of Creation mural. With the given challenges of installing a detailed piece of artwork on a vertical exterior façade, Syverson Tile & Stone also faced trying mid-summer conditions during the five-weeks it took to complete the work. With the heat and humidity in mind, Syverson Tile & Stone opted to use SPECTRALOCK PRO Grout in the more residentially-geared mini-units to help stay ahead of the cleanup stages and avoid a more difficult to remove grout haze from the iridescent glass mosaics. 

“We just really like working with LATICRETE products,” said Stammer. “We use LATICRETE on every project that we can. We use HYDRO BAN on most of our projects whether it’s to prep the substrate for a tiled floor or for waterproofing and anti-fracture protection in wet areas. My installers love using it. In a more general overview, we’ve never had any issues using LATICRETE products on any type of job. And when you have no issues you’ve found an awesome line of products.”

Click here to continue reading this Project Spotlight.

For more information about using LATICRETE in your projects, product demos, samples or technical support please contact LATICRETE UK Ltd on: 0151 486 6101, email sales@laticrete.co.uk or visit www.laticrete.co.uk

Worry-Free Protection for Your Work of Art

SPECTRALOCK® PRO Grout* 

Offering consistent colour that will not fade or crack, SPECTRALOCK® PRO Grout* provides maximum stain resistance to protect your mosaic art. Choose from 40 vibrant colours with an optional DAZZLE™ component for up to 220 colour options, including metallic and glow-in-the-dark. 

From underlayments to grouts, LATICRETE offers a system of high-quality, easy to use products that are backed by the best warranties in the industry.

For more information about using LATICRETE in your projects, product demos, samples or technical support please contact LATICRETE UK Ltd on: 0151 486 6101, email sales@laticrete.co.uk or visit www.laticrete.co.uk

LATICRETE Supports Mosaic Artists

The Wonders of Mosaics and LATICRETE!

This incredible mosaic mural at The University of Western Australia celebrates the University's Centenary.

Iain and his V-vo Architectural Mosaics team took 27 days to complete this mosaic work of art. 

LATICRETE tile installation materials help insure a long term, durable installation. From Crack Suppression membrane to Tile Adhesive.

Click here for more info on "Hours to Sunset."

Click here for more information on V-vo Architectural Mosaics.

For more information, product demos, samples or technical support call us on 0151 486 6101 or email sales@laticrete.co.uk

Mosaic Workshops in Chichester

A recent mosaic art workshop was conducted by Emma Biggs and Sonia King in Chichester. We received a wonderful email from mosaic artist, Sonia King:

Here’s the image from the two workshops taught by Emma Biggs and I at West Dean College in Chichester, UK. Everyone was really pleased with the products and you have some new converts. Participants came from the UK, US, Australia, The Netherlands, Canada and Portugal.

Many many thanks for Laticrete’s continued support, Sonia

For more information, call us on 0151 486 6101 or email sales@laticrete.co.uk

A River Runs Through

Gary Drostle's River of Life by Julie Richey

The below extract is taken directly from the published article - Mosaic Art NOW, No. 4, 2011:

You can't miss the river when driving into Iowa City, Iowa. The whole town climbs up from its meandering banks. At some points wildly overgrown, at others chastened with minor dams, the river appears placid as it snakes through the University of Iowa campus. Locals know, however, that the river occasionally creeps - or even surges - over its banks. This image of a river as a metaphor for life is the subject of award-winning UK mosaic artist Gary Drostle's largest public commission to date.

One of three large public commissions installed at the University of Iowa in 2010, Drostle's mosaics are a stunning focal point and a welcome addition to the extensive University of Iowa art collection.

Created for the University of Iowa Wellness Center, the River of Life and its accompanying medallion, Movement and Vitality, welcome visitors at the main entrance to this state-of-the-art, $59 million facility. The main mosaic, a 48 by 12 foot "river" of Winckelman porcelain tile, invites viewers to step across its spiralling source and meander, following he flow of both water and student athletes. 

"The course of tesserae are like people's lives," says Drostle. "They start at the top or source, with birth. Some of them don't quite make it," he says, alluding to the infrequent stray lines of tile that snake off the main body of the river, seemingly on their own random journey. The darkest areas of the river are "life out of balance," where the River of Life flows over the darkened quilt and basket patterns, spilling over the perimeter."

Henry B. Rothberg played a vital role in the selection of materials and the support. To continue reading what Gary Drostle had to say about LATICRETE and the products used on this amazing mosaic click here.

For more information, call us on 0151 486 6101 or email sales@laticrete.co.uk

Danny the Dragon!

UK mosaic artist Martin Cheek created this installation (a mosaic dragon called "Danny") in the USA and LATICRETE Europe very kindly provided LATAPOXY® 300 Adhesive and SPECTRALOCK® PRO Premium Grout for the project.

A short message from the artist:

"I am writing to say that 'Danny' went up like a dream with the Latapoxy 300."

Check out Martin's work on his website or Facebook page.

For more information, call us on 0151 486 6101 or email sales@laticrete.co.uk

Gorgeous Colours - Amazing Artwork

A Glass/Mosaic Hobbyist - Linden Bird

An email we received from Linden Bird a glass/mosaic hobbyist. Read what Linden says about LATICRETE adhesives and grouts:

"This was the first time that I had used LATICRETE on a large piece. I used the ‘normal’ grout in midnight on the attached kingfisher 30cm by 15cm indoor piece I made last year. I ‘discovered’ LATICRETE with this piece as everyone I asked said that LATICRETE  produced the best colours in their grout range. And I might add they were right. I used the midnight black on the kingfisher piece and it held the black really well. A lot of black grout from other makers seem to go grey once they cure but not this one.

I used the LATICRETE 335 Premium Flexible Adhesive and SPECTRALOCK® PRO Grout for the first time on the panel as it is an outdoor piece. I found the 335 was lovely and smooth and buttery. I could just as easily butter each piece or put it on larger areas. It also worked really well with the fibreglass mesh I put on some of the larger pieces. Though once it set that was it, there was no changing the location of the piece - it wasn’t going to go anywhere!

The SPECTRALOCK® PRO Grout was really easy to use and the instructions were easy to follow. I found the clean up with this grout a lot easier than ‘normal’ grout and it did not need to be sealed. I felt that the clean up of the grout seemed to clean and add an extra sheen to the glass as well so that was an added bonus.

I have since used the 335 on another piece I made for a friend and this time I added black cement oxide to it. I used it to adhere the little fused square of glass that I fused a frog in glass onto a 15cm square marmox board as well as making the 335 the textured border. This is also attached so you can see what I am talking about.

Thanks, Linden."

For more information, call us on 0151 486 6101 or email sales@laticrete.co.uk

LATICRETE in Istanbul

A lovely email and photo from mosaic artist Sonia King from a recent workshop in Istanbul:

I wanted to make sure you got the pic below in case you want to use it in your blog. Many many thanks for making the workshop such a good experience with LATICRETE 255 MULTIMAX. Kind regards, Sonia

Here's the official class pic from the 2014 Istanbul Intensive Mosaic Workshop with Sonia King. Participants came from Sweden, Turkey, Tunisia and the US and were able to use 255 MULTIMAX, the best adhesive ever!

Left to right:

Lesley Kingston, Australia

Chloe Harlow, US

Apryl Begay, US

Leila Zahmoul, Tunisia

Emelie Solklippa, Sweden

Sonia King, US

Hanna Westin Skog, Sweden

Gülay Yilmaz, Turkey

Lynne Timm, US

Resa McCreary, US

Noel Hensley, US

Ann Andrus, US

Many many thanks for sending the BEST adhesive for us to use, Sonia

A Unique Water Feature Down Under!

A WOW 9m2 Feature

Can you believe this unique structure is a water feature in Gladstone, Australia? 

This project was commission by the Gladstone Council for the foreshore upgrade. AS Signs built the structure out of steel. Mark McKenna did the mosaicing and had said this was a delicate project. The Pool Tile Co supplied the mosaics.

LATICRETE products used on this feature were purchased from Industry Supplies: 

LATAPOXY® SP-100 as a coloured adhesive - click here for more information.

SPECTRALOCK® PRO Grout was used as the grout - click here for more information.

Can we interest you in a FREE sample of these products? 

Contact us on 0151 486 6101 for more information, arrange a demo, request technical support or contact us here.

Marina Bay Sands Pool in the Sky

In concert with the need for a lightweight roof deck material, the LATICRETE specification for the 254,000 stone and mosaic glass tiles took a slightly different path to achieve the same high-performance results. Safdie’s elaborate, already famous pool that connects all three towers ultimately would rely on the pioneering epoxy adhesive technology developed by LATICRETE. 

The elevated swimming pool construction project on the cantilevered boat-shaped, 360-degree view observation deck faced the additional challenges that being suspended 200 metres above ground, across three separate structures will provide. For most typical pools, the LATICRETE specification would have included one of two innovative anti-fracture and waterproofing membranes with either LATICRETE® 9235 Waterproofing Membrane or the most advanced membrane on the market today, LATICRETE HYDRO BAN. Due to the unique structural design, weight and stresses placed on the three buildings by the Sands SkyPark, it was necessary to bond the tile directly to the stainless steel pool shell. To accomplish this task, LATAPOXY® 300 Adhesive, a high-strength 100% solids epoxy adhesive was chosen based on its ability to tenaciously bond to stainless steel.

Click here to continue reading. 

The River of Life - Mosaic Masterpiece

In a story told through elegant andamento, the River of Life takes an insightful and reminding look at the inherent alliance between nature and man, river and city, through the refreshing lens of new perspective in a mosaic art masterpiece installed with premium materials manufactured by LATICRETE.

Drostle’s spectacular, 3.6m x 14.3m creation is a testament to the enduring beauty of mosaic fine art, met in full for the final act by the spirit of LATICRETE people and the performance of LATICRETE products. And in so many ways the River of Life commission, from concept to grouting, peeks in at the evolution of the centuries old craft and by nature shines a light on how LATICRETE materials and methods have earned a loyal following among the world’s most-skilled mosaic artisans.

Click here to continue reading.

A Touching Mosaic Mural

This beautiful and touching mosaic mural of the late Dr. Henry M. Rothberg (LATICRETE Founder) was created by mosaicist Mark Kennedy. Mark is a very well know mosaic artists from Manchester and used 254 Platinum (Grey) and PERMACOLOR Grout (Sterling Silver) to complete this masterpiece. 

Click here for more information on mosaic artist Mark Kennedy.

Click here for more information on 254 Platinum.

Coming soon...

LATICRETE Mosaic Art competition 

Stay tuned, details will be revealed soon as will the prize packs!