The
MONA LISA PHOTO MOSAIC was an idea that David Wheeler, Vice-chair
of CityArts Factory in Downtown Orlando, Florida
came up with the
idea and
approached me during the summer of 2011. The idea was to create a
photo mosaic of City Arts Factory Logo, the Mona Lisa, originally
created by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1503.
I
decided bigger is better since the orlandoslice website at the time
had over 9000 images uploaded by Slice members. The task involved
uploading 350 pages out of the gallery, cropping and cutting 7000
images with a paper cutter and scissors which took over 30 hours. One
of the first challenges encountered was the fact that not all the
thumb nails were the same size and cutting them all to a uniform size
would mean loosing up to 30% off some of the images.
I
decided to separate them into 3 different sizes, 1”, ¾” and
11/16” and then subdivide them to warm and cool shades. Before I
could cut the large sheets of 100 pound card stock down to postage
stamp sized pieces, I printed tiny arrows across the backs of every
page. It was a simple matter of keeping the arrows up throughout the
entire project. I used 4,168 pieces out of the “pool” of 7000
photos. I made every attempt to maintain the original color and not
alter any images.
