Cheetah Cub

Cheetah Cub

Cheetah Cub is a mosaic portrait of a young Cheetah  (Acinonyx jubatus). From a young age I have been attracted by big cats cubs and I wanted to experiment with my Opus Pixellatum technique to create a cat’s portrait.

I selected a picture of a very young cub from the Serengeti desert.

Opus Pixellatum

Cheetah Cub was my the first colored Opus Pixellatum mosaic. Before this one I had worked exclusively with 7 nuances of black, white and gray shades. For Cheetah Cub I used a palette of 66 nuances.

I started to encode my picture and created 4 different models.

Having decided which one I would use I created the model, printed it and went to work.

Cheetah Cub is made exclusively of 5/16″ recycled gloss and iridescent glass tiles.

Greek Meander Border

Following the example of Ancient mosaicists, I used a classical White and Blue Greek meander pattern around my Cheetah Cub. THe model for the border is independent from the model for the main mosaic. It set on top of the main mosaic at the beginning of the work, but can also be added after the main mosaic has been executed.

The border is to the mosaic what the frame is to the painting.  Acting like the frame of a window opened onto a different reality, it pulls the viewer’s eyes to the main subject and isolates it from the rest of the room.

Custom Mosaic Models

The result is stunning !

Since I completed Cheetah Cub, I have created several models of mosaic pet portraits. If you would like to create your own mosaic of your pet but are not sure where to get started, I will design for you a model based on your picture and assist you to build it.