Please take a moment to read the entire course description. There is important information throughout, including details you’ll want to know at the very end.

Have you ever looked at a favorite photograph of your dog and wondered how you could capture not only what they look like, but their personality and expression in picassiette mosaic?

In Picassiette Dog Portrait, Solange and Alex Piffer take you step by step through their distinctive process for transforming broken plates, mugs, bowls, and pieces of china into a dimensional mosaic dog portrait filled with character.

Solange and Alex are among some of the most sought-after mosaic artists working in the Picassiette style, and when you see the incredible detail, dimension, and personality they create using broken china, it is easy to understand why. Their work has a style that is distinctly their own, and in this course, you get the opportunity to watch their process up close and learn the techniques behind it.

Solange and Alex are from Brazil, and their native language is Portuguese.

We wanted their teaching and techniques to be accessible to our English-speaking mosaic community, so we have translated and dubbed the entire course into English.

You can watch their hands at work while listening to the instruction in English, while still enjoying Alex and Solange's accent and personality, making it easy to follow along as they demonstrate each step of their Picassiette process. The course also includes subtitles in Spanish, Hebrew, and Portuguese, making it accessible to even more students around the world.

This course goes far beyond simply copying a photograph. You will learn how Solange and Alex look at the shape of a dog’s face, the direction of the fur, the contours of the body, the eyes, nose, ears, and expression, and then make thoughtful choices about which pieces of china will best bring those features to life.

One of the most exciting parts of their process is learning to see a plate differently. A curve that once formed the edge of a dinner plate can become the contour of a cheek. A pattern can suggest the direction of fur. A perfectly chosen piece of china can become an eye, nose, ear, or defining feature of your dog.

Alex shares his techniques for cutting, grinding, refining, fitting, and adhering the china, while Solange shares her approach to color, pattern, composition, and creating the background. Together, they show you how the smallest adjustments can completely change the expression and personality of your portrait.

A Note About Tools

To really achieve the dimension, close-fitting pieces, and refined details that are an important part of Solange and Alex’s Picassiette technique, they recommend that you have a glass grinder and a Dremel rotary tool.

These tools allow you to shape and refine the china in ways that nippers alone cannot, especially when creating the eyes, nose, facial contours, and those small pieces that need to nestle closely together.

Solange and Alex share the tools they recommend inside the course, along with a downloadable Suggested Tools, Materials, and Resources PDF, so you will know exactly what you need to get started.

In this course, you will learn how to:

• Choose the right photograph for creating a successful mosaic dog portrait.
• Select the appropriate substrate and transfer your image and design.
• Create a palette from plates, mugs, bowls, and china, considering color, pattern, shape, and natural curves.
• Map out the dog's facial features to establish proportion, structure, and balance before you begin cutting.
• Understand dimension and relief and how varying the height and placement of china creates a sculptural quality.
• Create templates for important features and use them to select and cut the right pieces of china.
• Build the nose, including shaping it with a grinder and using a Dremel to create the nostrils and finer details.
• Construct expressive eyes, from choosing and shaping the pupil and iris to creating the white of the eye and fitting the surrounding pieces.
• Create the ears and facial contours using the natural curves, patterns, and shapes found in plates.
• Choose china intentionally for different areas of the face, rather than simply filling spaces with pieces that fit.
• Use pattern direction to help describe fur, form, movement, and facial structure.
• Refine and grind individual tesserae so pieces nestle together and create a more precise fit.
• How to create a muscular dog versus a fluffy dog.
• Prepare and tint thinset and learn how Solange and Alex use mortar as part of the finished visual design.
• Apply the correct amount of thinset to each piece to help control height, alignment, dimensions, and placement.
• Adhere pieces in an intentional order while protecting surrounding pieces from being bumped or shifted.
• Work progressively into smaller, more detailed areas of the face, including the mouth and surrounding features.
• Create a background that complements your portrait without competing with your dog.
• Use a piping bag to apply tinted mortar in very narrow spaces and difficult-to-reach areas.
• There is a Bonus alternative technique for creating the eye so you have another option to use in your own portraits.

More Than a Dog Portrait

While Solange and Alex guide you through creating a dog portrait, the skills in this course can take you much further.

You are learning how to look at ordinary china and recognize shape, curve, pattern, color, dimension, and possibility. You are learning how to build form rather than simply fill an outlined space. And you are learning how very small choices in the placement and shaping of a tessera can create expression.

Your finished mosaic can be a portrait of your own dog, a beloved dog from your past, or the one created in this course. Most importantly, you will come away understanding Solange and Alex's Picassiette techniques so you can apply them to future mosaic work and develop portraits that have dimension, personality, and a style all your own.

You may notice that this course has been dubbed into English from Solange and Alex’s native Portuguese. Occasionally, when Alex says “Picassiette,” the dubbing system interprets it as “P7,” which may also appear in the subtitles. We are working to correct this, but in the meantime, please know that whenever you hear or see “P7,” Alex is referring to Picassiette.