My apologies for the late post – things have been hectic! This post will be short, but let me tell you right off the bat that this photo mosaic is one for the history books!

“You’ve got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”

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.

For all those do-it-yourselfers out there, this is for you…
Originally before selecting a mosaic service to create my mosaic, I tried several different mosaic software programs, with not much success (read my intro for details). Recently, I again scoured the web and found 4 seemingly popular online mosaic creation sites that would create my mosaic right online – how cool! I loaded the same source and cell images into each tool along with similar settings for sizing and coloration. My results are summarized below. I hope you find this review helpful 🙂

The Final Mosaic

Picture Mosaics A “true” photo mosaic Low colorization and optimal cell size Less than 3 minutes

EasyMoza A decent photo mosaic; “striped” effect throughout Good cell size; noticeable colorization Roughly 5 minutes

Mosaically Not a great photo mosaic; too much lost detail Noticeable colorization; small cells Roughly 6 minutes

Print Mosaic A generally poor photo mosaic Heavy colorization; small cells More than 10 minutes

Photo Upload Options

Mosaic Output & Sharing Options

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.