Progress Report On My Mosaic For The Bascilica in Knock, County Mayo

I spent a good part of last year making a design for what will be a huge mosaic on the wall behind the altar of the newly refurbished Bascilica of Our Lady of Knock.

I took the design over to Travisanutto Mosaics in Spilimbergo, Italy a few months ago and the experts there have been enlaging my design up to the full 14 metre square size.

I was back in Spilimbergo this week to see how the scaling up was going.

In the drawing room at Travisanutto we are starting to get a sense of the scale of the mosaic by looking at the cartoon in sections that show the full width.

Ginnasio was good enough to pose for me when I needed to fix up this character's clasped hands.

Here's a close-up of one of the very first areas of completed mosaic.

Fabrizio and his team (including Giovanni, in the foreground, and Giannasio in the distance) laid out the cartoon at the town gymnasium so we could view the full size image for the first time.

Having the "thumbs up" for the full size cartoon the team at Travisanutto are now ready to start making the mosaic itself. 

Here are some of the smalti (coloured glass pieces sourced in Murano, Venice) to be used in the foreground of our mosaic.
The team at Travisanutto will be working hard to complete the mosaic in time to transport it to Ireland in February next year.