Mother’s Day is just around the corner! It’s a holiday that holds significant weight with my family, so I’m always on the hunt for a bigger and better gift than the year before. I don’t mean bigger and better in a physical or monetary sense, but in a thoughtful, symbolic sort of way. This is where my photo mosaic obsession comes into play.

While searching for creative Mother’s Day ideas, I found the Amazing Women Everywhere Mosaic, an online photo mosaic where visitors can share a photo and story of an important woman in their lives.

I love to doodle. I never thought of myself as much of an artist in that respect, I was always more of a photography person (photo mosaics too :-D), but I often find myself doodling whenever my mind wanders. I’ve always loved the idea of just randomly sketching out small, simple ideas that spring into my head. It’s like a form of meditation!

Anyway, during one of my photo mosaic hunts, I found the work of Sagaki Keita, a pen and ink artist living and working in Tokyo, and I was absolutely blown away.

I love photo mosaics (duh!). But I really love when artists incorporate inventive and unique ideas to elevate the mosaic concept even further. Transforming old, sometimes unused, objects into works of art is even better! I guess I don’t need to tell you my interest was piqued when I came across these stunning photo mosaic installations from audiovisual artist Daniel Canogar.

Finding creative inspiration in the everyday routines is a rare gift. For five consecutive years, Montana resident Gary Tallman has created intricately detailed mosaics out of chopped firewood, also referred to as cordwood. Each design takes more than 20 hours of labor to construct, not counting the initial design and sorting of the wood by color. The variety of colors and shades that naturally occur in the wood grain is phenomenal; in an interview with the Great Falls Tribune, Tallman compares each piece of wood to a pixel in a digital image. By combining different colors of wood, he can create lush shades and textures.

Outer space seems so unknowable and unreachable to most people. Thankfully, modern technology has given us a glimpse of our planetary neighbors and far away star systems. While reading some updates in the world of photo mosaics, I found a recent project from NASA called the Wave At Cassini Event. In mid-2013, the Cassini spacecraft took a short break from it’s job of hovering around Saturn to snap a photo of its home, planet Earth.

There’s nothing quite like the love a fan feels for their favorite team. Especially football fans, they must be some of the most devoted supporters out there. That being said, it came as no surprise when I found the Ohio State University True Fan Mosaic, an online photo mosaic dedicated to the OSU Buckeyes. Fans can submit their photos to show their support and enter to win tickets to an OSU game!

Nostalgia has become a significant part of pop culture in the United States. Clothing, furniture, technology, music, etc. from our childhood can leave a lasting impression on our personalities. In my ongoing search for the latest and greatest photo mosaics, I stumbled onto Austrian designer Kay Knight‘s work. Knight has figured out a way to channel that love for nostalgia into art by creating photo mosaics from outdated keyboard caps. Knight first plucks off each individual key, photographs them, then creates photo mosaics of vintage electronics, from arcade games to the Walkman.

What’s Black, white, and read everyday? Barcodes of course. Few artists have experimented with these simple graphic icons. But wouldn’t you have guessed it, I found an artist who turns them into mosaics! Florida based artist Scott Blake has devoted his creative passion to barcodes. From web work to paintings, Blake has dabbled in almost every field of artistic expression. Due to my love for photo mosaics, I want to focus on his digital mosaic portraits. I appreciate that these mosaics have an actual pattern to them and are not simply laid on a vertical and horizontal grid. 

I haven’t been to many Broadway shows, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to see Cinderella live on stage! While reading about the show, I stumbled onto the Cinderella Fan Mosaic, an online photo mosaic that’s created in real-time! Cinderella fans can upload their photo to show their love and support for Fran Drescher and Carly Rae Jepsen on their Broadway debut.

I’m always on the hunt for fresh mosaic ideas, big or small. Big mosaic projects can be challenging, but very rewarding in the end. Created by artist Gerhard Marx in cooperation with Spier Architectural Arts, this larger-than-life mosaic of an aerial photograph of Johannesburg, South Africa spans 56 panels and weighs nearly three tons! Spanning five months of work by seven mosaic artists and nine apprentices to complete, it was unveiled at the 2013 FNB Joburg Art Fair in Johannesburg.