Creating 3D Sculptures for Mosaics using Wedi Board with Marsha Rafter

Learn to sculpt a variety of shapes using Wedi board

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Mosaic Arts Online is excited to bring to you an amazing course on how to create Sculptural substrates using Wedi board. This course will take you and your sculpting skills to a whole new level!!! Prepare to be empowered!

In this course Marsha Rafter opens you up to the possibilities of creating any three dimensional shapes using Wedi board – that wonderfully versatile foam, fiberglass, and cement building material - and provides you with a comprehensive step- by -step online course for creating sculptural mosaic substrates.

If you've used Wedi board in the past, you'll never look at a sheet of Wedi board the same again!

Marsha brings to this course her extensive education in ceramic art and sculpture, her many years of experience as a studio artist, and as an art educator as well as her knowledge and in depth experience in creating three dimensional sculptural mosaics.

This course will leverage your own art inspirations and help you to refine those ideas to choose projects most conducive to success.

Marsha will start with how to get an image from your vision to a paper pattern, to the Wedi board and ultimately to a three dimensional shape.

Starting with inspiration in books, nature or your own creative space Marsha will take you step by step finding the design, how to trace it to your Wedi board and how to cut it out.

Never used a jigsaw before? Marsha will go through all parts of the jigsaw, how to insert the blade, safety considerations, and detailed instructions on how to operate a jigsaw with ease and confidence. You will feel so empowered with your capability that you will never have to rely on anyone again to do what you can do yourself.

After you have learned everything you need to know about the jigsaw, you'll learn how to build more three dimensional shapes by carving, rasping, and shaving the Wedi board. Then Marsha will show you how to layer multiple thicknesses and how to stack them up to create even more complex shapes. Next she will show you how to properly wrap the edges of the cut Wedi board to protect it and to properly apply thinset to prepare your piece for your mosaic tesserae.

To display your piece....Marsha will demonstrate and discuss a variety of possible ways from hanging your piece on wall, to mounting it on a post or a small garden stake or hanging it from a wire for a vertical display.

This course is suitable for everyone from the beginner to the very advanced student. Three different project skill levels are covered in this course, allowing you the student to progress through the levels over time as you become more comfortable with the different techniques. More advanced students will be able to expand their vision to whatever is imaginable. From design to building a sculptural substrate using Wedi board the sky is the limit.

There is a BONUS section where Marsha demonstrates how to cut out a Seahorse with the jigsaw for a more complex and advanced lesson.

This course comes with a downloadable PDF with all the tools, materials, and resources to get started.


Your Instructor


Marsha Rafter
Marsha Rafter

My professional art training began in my home state of North Carolina. After completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in ceramics, I ran my own studio art business for several years as a production potter in North Carolina. In 1985, after a move to southern California, I went on to attend California State Polytechnic University and received my Master of Arts in Educational Technology and Media Studies.

For the next sixteen years I taught in public and private schools, in art centers as well as in my own studio. Of those years of teaching, ten were as an “Artist in the Schools” through the Park City Arts Council in Park City, UT, and in Santa Cruz, CA through their Cultural Council’s Spectra Arts program and three were as a high school ceramics teacher.

Over the years of working as a ceramic artist, I attended many private workshops with master artists in clay as well as classes at Penland School of Crafts, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Mendocino Arts Center, and the Institute of Mosaic Art.

While attending an architectural ceramics workshop in 2004, I met someone who invited me to attend the first SAMA Conference in San Francisco. On a whim, I decided to go and as a part of the conference took my first mosaic workshops. In one of those workshops I studied with Ellen Blakely and I learned to create mosaics with her tempered glass method. I absolutely loved it and began combining that technique with my ceramic work almost immediately. Since that time, I have gone on to take classes with twenty eight different mosaic artists. Those workshops and classes have given me a broad base of understanding, knowledge and skill for creating my own work and have expanded my mosaic vocabulary, enabling me to teach others from that strong foundation.

I began creating sculptural work several years ago when I decided to submit work for jury into a couple of Botanical Gardens’ Sculpture Shows. I discovered that I love working on larger pieces and have primarily focused on outdoor sculpture and exterior installations for the last six years. Ceramics are almost always a part of my work. I love the sensuous quality and malleability of clay and the variety of textural tiles, shapes and organic inclusions I can create to incorporate into my mosaics is a continuous source of joy.

I regularly accept commissions to create original works of art that are displayed in private residences and landscapes as well as in corporate and public settings throughout the country. I travel nationally as well as internationally to teach and attend workshops and my travels are a continuous source of inspiration.

Living in San Diego County for the last eight years has inspired my newest sculptures which are life size three dimensional cactus.





Course Curriculum


  First Section
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Frequently Asked Questions


When does the course start and finish?
The course starts now and never ends! It is a completely self-paced online course - you decide when you start and when you finish.
How long do I have access to the course?
How does lifetime access sound? After enrolling, you have unlimited access to this course for as long as you like - across any and all devices you own.
What if I am unhappy with the course?
We would never want you to be unhappy! If you are unsatisfied with your purchase, contact us in the first 14 days and we will give you a full refund.

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