Friendly Goldfish 20 x 16 inch close
Delicate delica beads of orange and yellow depicts goldfish scales. Fins are iris spray painted crumpled sheets. The almost flat goldfish is shaded to look rounded. Real wood bark and foodstuff pendants (potato french slices, carrots, lemon, plus fish gills for added accent) make a realistic portrayal of an aquarium.

Crouching Lizard 18 x 14 inch close
Took at least 3 days to cover the lizard face with delica beads. It took so long the artist decided to cut short the artisan's agony and dimply cover the body and show only the face. Artisan hasn't even finished the whole face but you can tell by looking at the actual art piece. But go ahead and expand the view to full screen size and keep expanding to the max - and you will see what I mean. But even unfinished - it was magnificent work and the painter acknowledged that by creating a cave covered with foodies making this piece the all time favorite.

Golden Aquarium 24 x 12 inch close
It took Junjun the artisan 3 days to compose this fish. Blue sanded textured iris alternated with gold colored shredded then laminated iris sheets. Artist Red took less than a day to find just the right dried woods, barks plus a smattering of shells then finishing off with bright orange paint. Not sure why water should be orange but it looks great anyway.

Flying Marlin 18 x 18 inch close
Boy am I glad to see another piece that uses flaked shells. You may not be able to tell right away, fooled me too because it's painted over. They pose as the scales covering of the marlin. The marlin's body should be shimmery, right? So the shell flakes are just perfect. The head with the long snout is just perfect in painted wood, corn husk for fins and some thick fabric for tail. I know this image is from a photograph and one that is very common. Anybody knows if royalty in tis case applies?

Red and Blue Goldfish 12 x 8 inch close
This unnaturally colored goldfish was started by a child who did not know any better. But then again the combination of all 4mm iris tiles in mosaic inlay works too. The mouth did not come out great but it was reasonably good enough that the painter artist decided it was worth painting a background fdor it phus adding plant accents too.

Bubbly Fish 8 x 8 inch close
A couple of small black twigs and a handful of halved round beads adorn the hand painted marine scenery. Plus of course the fish which is a mostly raw, uncovered by iris paper pasted on cardboard. Like a skinny bikini it is just covered very lightly by few pieces of gold hued iris tiles. The technology of printing is now at the level where raw plain printouts in different ink and paper have become by themselves very popular wall decors. In this fish we show a possibility of mixing painting and print. Of course lots of versions of it have been around.

Deep Blue Coral Reef 18 x 14 inch close
Just like Nemo going to school with different species - so do the fishes here. And you know the fishes are are of different species cause not only are their colors different, there materials are too. Nemo's kind sport small orange delicas with white shell flakes and black iris flakes. Their blue and yellow angelfish friends are made of finely chopped iris flakes. So are the Moorish Idol Fish of yellow and black stripes. Notice the heads of white hair chopped off from scallion (leafy onions) on the lower left. They do make good looking corals. Or maybe floating jellyfish?

Gold Finned Blue Fish 16 x 12 inch close
Notice the blue fish scales covering the fish' body? It looks actual item even more real. Except maybe that for now they're aquare cut. I can wait to see them cutting the iris sheets in real scale shapes Does any variety of goldfish sport a blue color? No matter, for now until ull notice, we are not here to depict everything realistically. The number one rule is that they had better look good. And this one is a very strong favorite. And it is the colors that got it the aclaim.

Green Finned Snapper 20 x 16 inch close
Snapper fish is built mosaic style by iris orange csquares and iris white flat 4mm tiles. Green swath of top could be water shimmer around fin. Whatever. Land mass where fish hunts for food is intricately carved styro with all sorts of foodie pendants and iris flakes sprinkled around. Food stuff include mexican turnips, potato french cut, lemon peels, sweet potato rind, crushed corn husk, blackened tomatoes and other exotic (not usually found on canvas) stuff'.

Coral Reef in Four 24 x 21 inch close
To date this is our only multiple framed set. You could buy only the 4 framed canvases and hang them directly on your well. Or as we have done - buy the single large frame made of velcro cloth over plywood to keep together everything and have only two holes poked on your wall. This set does not have a single giant irie or whjatever pendant - but rather a bunch of delica designed fishes mixed with foodies made to look like corals. Notice the onion cut that blooms into a rose flower. Right next to the brocoli that looks like leaves on a tree? Yep - foodstuffs have other uses too.

Royal Peacock 14 x 16 inch close
A hodgepodge of iris csquares and flat tiles fill this peacock in a garden setting. A couple of leaves outlined by irridescent green iris tiles fill up an otherwise empty upper right. Center top black twigs, a few dried leaves and crocheted flower with pearls may not be enough to balance the weights and density of the items all around - but it does look great anyway.

Geese over Marshland 20 x 20 inch close
Do you have a lot of felt or felt looking materials that are destined for the trash can? We had some and one of our artisans thought they'd make good birds. I think chiken feathers specially the tiny down feathers would have been more appropriate. But this work isn't bad either. And now I can assume this material would work, and work even better on for hairy mammals like bears, cats, dogs. Back to the work itself, it's good eough considering its the first time we used the material, that is flet. But looks like it could use a lot of trimming on the feet part. Nothing like that shoud ever pass quality control. Luckily that kind of flaw is one that's easily repaired by the artisans themselves.

Parrot on a Cliff 12 x 16 inch close
There are two kinds of red iris flaked sheets in this parrot. They're similar but differ in thickness. Notice how much darker the red wings are than the body. It takes our artisan several weeks to get enough experience to know what works where. Not saying that a neophyte can't come out with some decent rederings - but you can always tell an expert one by his work. Our artisans are only just starting. But they bare getting very good. Just watch out for our next batch. The day after that Red the artist stated using styro props -all the artisans were at work making their own. And a week later in May - all our artwork had styro on them. Even the lone wolf piece where real wood may have been a better choice.

Parrot Flying High 10 x 8 inch close
(excluding the tail). Possibly our simplest iris mosaic composition. The dark blue lower part of the wings and tail were originally cust out from iris sheets too. But the painting artist decided there was too much glitter so he did something close to sacrilegious, at least to the mosaic artisan. He painted over them and got a much toned down (shimer wise) iris bird. Hmmm- I suppose too much iris could be ... like too much? :-)

Greater Green Bird 17 x 17 inch close
The bird in felt again. Background of green plus a darker green to markd the wings and feather. Plus a very realistic looking webbed feet and claws. Wood for a beak and a real twig to perch on. The background greens for forest that fades into white then very pale blue with cople of hists of clouds in the distance. It all shouts simplicity. Then then again simple can also be beautiful. Depends on your taste. Anybody knows the name of the bird? I looked it up on Bing (Microsoft's counterpart for Google) but could not find anything but Greater green bird. Funny name for a bird. Of course I did not have time to look too hard.

Birds over the Beach 16 x 12 inch close
Iris and Delica beaded blackbirds in formation flying over land mass by the sea. The sea is rendered by painting a darker shade of blue to delineate it from the lighter colored sky. That's simple. But the land mass required a carefully sculptured styrofoam - the one that came in with the TV was handy. Plus some spray painted steel wool for grass and soil.

 

Lone Wolf 16 x 12 inch close
A whole bunch of artfully laid out and painted steel wool; that plus some painted coco beads, painted clay scupture for the mouth make up this scary looking lone wolf. Real weed grass blend well with the painted grass. As well real twigs and dried leaves beside the styro carved wood make for excellent imagery.

Turtle on the Sand 10 x 12 inch close
No iris here. Crushed jade and blackstone make up the turtle's shell back; while small white resin pearls dot the head and limbs bordered by small black plastic beads. This is a heavier piece than others of the same size because of the stone weight. Still it sits well on the canvas.

Two Birds on a Cliff 24 x 12 inch close
A whole jumble of irises here in different cuts and colors. The blues are the larger flake size loose iris. On other hand extremely finly cut and flaked are the green colored ones - with the rest of the colors yellow, red and oragne falling through the medium sized sieve. Black and brown ones were generated by parking some irises for a while in an active oven.

Holey Owl 12 x 16 inch close
The sun is still out while this owls eyes are wide open. Or is it the bright city lights that's preventing us from getting a pitch black night? Whatever the case the painting looks good. With the hole carved out of the realistic looking styro tree, (I actually thought it was real bark). The owl breast of gold and black delica this onion skin for wings and head. A necklace clasp for his nose too. Dots of yellow flowers are on the bush and rounding thing up - the painted dried coconut leaves.

Lizard roadkill 12 x 12 inch close
Flat lizard on a black 'asphalt' surface equals roadkill look. I don't think our artisan intended it to look that way. But the black spray painted crumpled aluminum foil is on a canvas frame. And the green lizard that's made mostly of delica beads and tubes does look flat Anyway this is just one of those experiments we wanted to try and was worthiy enough to show. Aluminum foil I believe is one of the most underused man made materials in craft. And to think we use so much then simply throw them away. It is a part of our job to look recycling opportunities and this is one of them. I love the sheen of foil. We'll try using more of it in future projects, and then we won't cover the in paint.

Horsing Around 14 x 10 inch close
The sun and sky around it, the ground and cactus are all painted here. The horses are provided with more details in the orange and black delica beads rendering. Some beads look like they dried out of place. Our artisans can easily repair that before we turn over or ship to a buyer. Just make sure to add the comment when you order these one of a kind treasures and we'll happily oblige.

Horse against the Sun 10 x 8 inch close
Blackbird hovers over horse both drawn by black delica beads and highlighted by iris flake covered sun while delica composed cactus stands in foreground. Ground is partially filled by shimmery shiny pyritic stones made up of loose iris pieces. Intensity of glowing iris sun is further accented by the bright circular orange painting in background with a hint of dark clounds in the middle.

 

Flowers on Abaca Basket 16 x 20 inch close
Ok you can tell that this is a very early work for this artisan. But only if you look closely with the magnifying glass supplied by this software. (Do not expand to the max) But if you do - you see side by side with the crudly cut flowers - the purple capiz sshell flakes that provides background cover for the bouquet. But the abaca basket sure is a refreshing idea. And the choice of colors is great. So all in all this stillqualifies as a good piece.

Sprinkled Flowers 10 x 14 inch close
Thanks to Van Gogh who won't be demanding royalty for his painting's still life portrayal here. As with almost all iris pendants in our work - an image is downloaded from google, printed and then we fill up the page itself with items that most match the textures of the printed item. In this work some printed spaces are left as is - without any covering. Iris flat and tile and rounded tiles depict the flowers and leaves beautifully. A native fabric makes up the vase.

Tribute to Van Gogh 12 x 16 inch close
Can't compete with Van Gogh - at least when it comes to fame and fortune of his creations. But we can always enjoy the privilege of being able to copy his works. This one has been rendered with a lot of iris tiles in the traditional mosaic pattern. And in this work and in most ofours where we use iris, the painting acquaries a shine, glitter or sparkle would not have had by just using paints. Someday artists would and should be using a lot more of the man made materials and elements that shine, sparkle and glitter after all the natural world is so full of them too. And no - we won't claim to have started a trend, we like to think we are just quick to catch up on what's going on.

Delicate Delica Lotus 10 x 14 inch close
We used delica and seed beads here - left over supplies from FCQ's production of jewelry component pieces. Still it's fun work for our lady artisans if a bit challenging. It does take some work arranging those beads with precision. As for the painting work, practically anybody can do it. You can too and call it your own. Just buy the hard to do Iris Mosaic pendants or inserts then paint your own background. Watch this site for what's new and available.

 

Lady of the Twenties 17 x 17 inch close
Once upon a time FCQ had an order for shell bags that got cancelled. Now one of those shell bags has just been transformed and relocated into this painting. Yay that's what I call recycling too! And it does look perfect there. We have plenty more where this comes from so ew might be inclined to give a pretty good price (relative to having all those shells). But only so long as the stocks last folks! And looks like there's a seam on the canvas - so you culd be looking at another discount for just this particular piece. Aside from the shells, there are different kinds of native fabric here: sinamay on the neck, the face and most of the hat. Plus two kinds of rafia: on the band on the hat and lower left shoulder. And of course the canvas. All very natural looking. Good job!

Mother and Son 16 x 16 inch close
How can a relatively few pieces of small beads convey so aptlly a mother's tender love for her child? And the serenity on the face of the sleeping little one? That I guess is what artists were born for. But for the most part they'ved used their talent mostly on painting. I have yet to know a self respecting artist who will take the time to draw with iris, beads oror other materials you can hold in your hands. I guess that's what the artisans are here for. We at Iris Mosaic are striving to combine the talent of artist at making originals with the enthusiasm of artisan for working mass production of copies. I love this piece, so Phlippine inspired. I just bemoan the fact that only delica which we have to import are used. Hmmm maybe we should learn to recycle plastic bottles and turn them into beads. I could not stress it enough - we've got our heads on reccyclling. Big thing with us.

Picasso's Lady 17 x 17 inch close
The lines are copied faithfully from the master's work himself. But the matrialshave been changed. To lovers of shine and glitter it looks a whole lot better. Looking at the red background, I can honestly say that our artists painted that paart better the master. Ok everybody already knows that what makes painting worth so much more is not the skill but the history. (Having said that let me say that we have so many artisans who can faithfully copy any work. So ask us about our made to order copies.) Back to the materials used in this painting - that's crumpled then ironed iris sheet that's covering the whole lady including her clothes and upper hair. And her necklace is all buri nut beads.

Many Many Faces 14 x 18 inch close
Picasso abstract style of drawing was made by our artist. And finished all the way by him too, the painting as well as the artisan part of the work. Artisan - meaning the repetitive inlaying of different kinds of iris tiles and flakes into the mosaic faces. This type of Picasso paintings are very popular and must have been copied millions of times. So no big deal designing and painting one. But adding the mosaic inlay does give it a new on top of this being one of a kind. Question - if we copied one of Picasso's work exactly but using iris and other stuff - does that vilate any copyright rule?

 

Two Iris Guitars 17 x 27 inch close
Large swatches of straight cut crumpled iris sheets cover the two guitars. The outlines of the 2 guitars are clear including the piece of music sheet. But some pieces seem to be on the wrong layer including the bar that belongs to the guitar at the back. But artists can just draw their reality as they see fit.. Or how they'd like to view them Would you call that artist's privelege. This is the biggest piece we've done so far. I like the detailed painting done on the finely printed music notes. The whole team like this work enough, it is not 3d wo award it without it's own frame of synthetic wood. So it's now even bigger.

Ninja Princess 16 x 12 inch close
This is one great piece for lovers of video games and fantasy movies. One of everybody's early favorite. A face of white pearl and alavish head attire that includes thin leaves of metallic sheets (again courtesy of fcq left overs), black seed beads, a generous helping of orange and green csquares, and a dash of green and yellow iris flakes. The painting is mostly delicate but has its rough edges. Colors from glowing yellow to dark red traverse the thin veins between the leaves. Plus the bright saturated red center pulling everything together. The painting seems to have its center of gravity with the princess - but that does not seem to matter. Beauty is its wah.

Lovers in Sinamay & Batik 16 x 20 inch close
These are all sinamay cutouts forming the mosaic picture of the lovers. No iris, no painting and and not 3d. The artists are experimenting with cut and then individually dyed shpes in sinamay. They're all glued onto the canvas which is then framed in raffia and finally framed again in synthetic wood picture frame.

Harvesting in Glitter 19 x 16 inch close
Yaay raffia! That's the term we use for a type of woven native abaca seen here as a wide border on the mostly iris mosaic harvest scenery. Native weaving framing an iris mosaic highlights the contrasts: natural vs man made ; unsaturated color versus saturated; brights versus browns, new versus old. Normally they're not mixed together but hey, tastes do evolve. And there's nice family scene there too.

Three Eyed Lady 10 x 12 inch close
After scouring google for cubism style painting and not finding this image - I found out from our painter that this was indeed an original of his. bravo - he certainly fooled me.

 

Mallard Duck 23 x 19 inch close
Shell flakes become feathers on the duck's body. The head is heat gunned styro. Stiffened threads on the tail, flat capiz on webbed feet. Lightly spray with brow paint here and some dark browns there plus a small spot of solid blue and wala - a Mallard Duck! One that looks like it's just gotten fresh out of the water, a little scraggly, I mean. The painter put a whole lot of stuff in the background: rocks and boulders with tall grass and long reeds, a patch of green grass and a field of yellow whatever. A line of bush with hints of flowers, hills or mountains in the distance, a bkue sky up above with white clouds in the foreground. Could one ask for anything more? I myself would like a little nice cottage . Yes - one could custom order that too. Just give us you image.

My Nipa Hut 21 x 16 inch close
In grade school, w e used to sing "My nipa hut..., is very small. " I haven't lived in one yet but I've always wanted to try see what it was like. Including the very simple life it it connotes. No cellphones... . This nipa hut is made of almost exactly what the larger livable huts are made of. Except for the roof - that's corn husk there. And how does one copy flat 2d images and transform it into a 3d item that is flat enough to paste on the flat painting surface? It's not very hard to do - but you've got to have a lot of patience, preparing the materials alone take time. Plus of course it takes a love of doing the craft.

Purple Butterfly 14 x 19 inch close
This was first submited as a canvas ppiece. The same as #10. But it looked so simple and elegant, they put it on a frame of its own. Materials used on butterfly are: red-purplish loose iris flakes glued on; flaked black pen shell on the body, tiny black seed beads for the border and antena and some irridescent delica beads on upper wings, white small pearly plastic beads on lower wings. Butterfly hovers over a painted picture of green baqmboo on a background of matching red/purplish color.

Indian Chief 16 x 20 inch close
I checked the picture on google and found a lot of variations of this handsome Indain chieftain. So are we breaking any copyright rule by using images that we download from online to turn into one of a kind production like this? And what if we take orders for hundrreds, even thousand of pieces. Have not gone into researching that far. Gone only so far to tell our artist who choose what to work on to select royalty free images. I guess for now that we are still small, we must not allow ourselves to be paralyzed by the prospect of future litigaton. Still I have my eye on that ball and by talking out loud, we may get feedback from customers who know. Wouldn't it be great though if well known artist, or dealers who own the right to valuable paintings ask us to manufacture copies of their art in the iris mosaic fashion? The better to elevate the status of the original painting. Also the easier for us to sell said items.

Loch Ness Dragon 19 x 23 inch close
Do you belive in the Loch Ness monster. If so - does it look like this? The legend is all over the place when it comes to the dragons and loch ness. And even the story. No matter - I love this dragon. So much creativity here; carved wood for horn, fish bones for teeth, corn husks for fin and neck, piece of leather for tongue, and suitable parer or cardboard stock for scales and others. Artist also found ingennious way to merge the flat painting of the sea while making the 3d dragon pop up from it almost seamlessly. So realistic looking, if I may say so. Folkswho love cosplays will love this piece. And we look forward to building a network where we can serve one of a kind custom designed orders for their costumes or props.

Shimmering Cleopatra 14 x 16 inch close
If Cleopatra could look down from heaven, she would surely love the look of herself on this. The collar and headdress are so lovely, ladies might want to order with us a version that they can wear. And for sure - if an order big enough comes our way, we'll accept it> Would be great for our jewelry department. Still we're pursuing decorating houses with iris mosaic painting - we can only be glad right now that we are able to use our stocks of so many kinds of beads in this project. I just love this work. Still I wish they had use more iris materials which we produce than delica items which we import.

CSquare Abstract 9 x 14 inch close
Again not a drop of artist paint on this piece.Intertwining lines in design of this abstract work are filled with different colors of csquares. Csquares are 4x4 mm iris tiles on which a drop of envirotex resin is dropped. It forms a rounded dome on top of a square peg. Like a sqaure tile being Cubed - hence csquare. The piece looks very elegant in black matted glass covered frame.

Shimmery Butterfly 11 x 11 inch close
Different colors of iris flakes are cemented with white glue to sections of the butterfly lined by black coco beads. For sure the lining of coco beads could have been done better, but it does look good as is. Beauty is relative and should a future buyer demand a stricter aesthetic standard, we can deliver that for sure.

Lush Golden Tree 12 x 12 inch close
There's no paint or artist paianted job in this pure prinrout covered with irtis. All the leaves here are tiny triangle cut outs of thin iris sheet. And all the brown barks and twigs are rectangular cuts of thicker iris sheet. The rest - grass and sky are just the printed paper itself. And inside the glass covered frame - it is hard to tell the printout is not actually painted. Potentially, one can just order or buy the iris pendant with its printed background intact and put it in a glass encased frame. Nice!i

Wooden Boat on Marsh 18 x 14 inch close
I did not imagine it was possible to put what looks like a real wide 3d wooden boat on a flat frame. But in this painting you have it. Just a matter of getting a picture of the boat taken at just the right perspective or angle. The painting of the reeds on the marshland, the water and the sand too are all expertly and delicately done. Vic is our expert artist did the painting. Jaime did the boat. No iris here. But we do have the 3d boat to qualify it as one of our 3d paintings.

Flotilla in Sunset 16 x 12 inch close
No iris here, rather shell flakes which have the same kind of glow. And of course shells are more natural and precious than manmade iris. Brownlip brick cut on the foreground boat. Redlip and blacklip disc cut shell on sail. White irregular cut capiz shells on the three boats. And a whole lot of goldlip oval cuts adorn the blue sky. Signifying rays from the sun? Artist can be weird, but as long as it looks good... Sun is of white capiz shell. Love the painting here capturing the shimmer and glow on the water surface.

Moored Canoes 16 x 13 inch close
Corn Husks again? May have been premature to call our company Iris Mosaic. As soon as we got the idea that recycling anything and not just the Iris leftovers that we have (which is considerable anyway), we wondered into refreshingly new territory. Like the kitchen with the corn husks and veggie throw aways . But we will keep the name, thank you. There's no rule that says should limit what you carry to your name. Back to the work itself - 2 marvels here: the boats that look 3d but are actually just a little thicker than flat. The body is made of corn husk. The other marvel (to me at least) - paint that artist can make to lool like water. Congrats to both artisan and astist.

Starry starry night 16 x 12 inch close
Van Gogh and Picasso are favorite artists to copy works from. Perjhaps because nobody will be running us for royalties? Yes indeed, we use the world wide web not just as inspiration but as raw materials to get prints from to layout over. Corn husks compose the giant plant portrayed in the foreground. Pretty sure Van Gogh would be proud of the wayour painter rendered his painting style. The little village is a few pieces of scrap wood cut and pasted to size.

Einstein's Equations 12 x 16 inch close
Where would the world be without Einstein? And is there a bigger genius that came after him? Whatever one would find it hard to be wrong trying to sell his icon to a largely approving public. There must be thousands of photos of this guy - I like the one our artist chose to make a portrait in delica beads on. Just one color bead and you can make an unmistakable replica of anybody? Would you like to try yours and see if your friends can identify you in the painting. We want to try custome making that too. As for the equations - are they accurate? Who cares - physicist who can understand and want to make a fuss are a rare species indeed. Hmmm but then again lots of men and women are picky about a lot of things. Like how old a pinting has to really be to command a humonguous price.