Crealde Welcome Garden Mosaic

At the last minute I decided to go to Crealde in Winter Park for a Sunday morning sketch class. When I got to the school I saw this mosaic being created and I stopped in my tracks and wanted to draw. I had come to draw from a model however, so I went into the studio and started to set up, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the mosaic being created right outside the door. The model was a beautiful young girl but I finally decided to pack up my supplies and I went outside to sketch the artist at work. Her name is Lynn Tomlinson. She worked non stop for well over two hours. She would use the snippers to snip tiles and then slather on the fixative or cement and set the tile in place. The whole design was already drawn out and much of her attention on this day was devoted to placing bright yellow and orange tiles around the school name. Lynn said that she had designed the mural along with Nicki Pierson.
The Crealde Welcome Garden Mosaic is being created to celebrate Crealde’s 35th anniversary. All the funds for the mural’s creation came from grassroots fund raising. The mosaic has been in the works for many months now. Artists have been pressing tiles as a way to raise money for the project. An individual could press a tile for just $20 and a business could sponsor a tile for $100. These sponsored tiles are the green oval shapes in the sketch. The mosaic is taking shape quickly thanks to the many volunteers and artists who have worked together collaborating at every step in the process. I have no doubt that the next time I stop out for a sketch class, this mosaic will be finished. Besides the mosaic, recent renovations to the campus were funded by a recent $100,000 grant from the Orange County Cultural Affairs Council for a campus facelift, including a new entry that extends into an attractive patio area and beautiful landscaping bought out to the front of the property. All these changes are a huge milestone for Crealde.