A Tesera mosaic portrait begins with a drawing Tedooo makes from your photo, in roughly a minute. With your approval given, our artisans trace a full-size cartoon, cut glass smalti and ceramic with a hammer and hardie, set the pieces in lime mortar on a sealed birch panel, grout, clean, wax and sign it, and crate it within two weeks.
Where does the design come from?
From Tedooo. You upload a photo or describe what you want drawn, and Tedooo's design technology draws it in mosaic in about a minute. It is free, there is no card to enter, and you can run it as many times as you like.
We hold the design up against your photograph before the first tessera is cut. If it is still not there after a few runs, our artists draw it by hand instead; tell us in the note field and you will hear from one of the artists that day. The approved design is what we set, which is the reason you sign off on it before any money changes hands.
What makes a photo easy to draw from is a short list: a single animal, its face turned more or less toward the lens, both eyes showing. Which photo to upload has the rest.
What is the cartoon?
A full-size drawing traced from the approved design, the lines every tessera will follow. "Cartoon" is the old mosaic word for it, and it is the first thing that happens on the bench.
The cartoon is where the detail of your photo is decided: where the eyes sit, how the muzzle turns, where a white blaze on a chest begins and ends. Tedooo's loader has a line about the eyes mattering most while it draws, and the bench works the same way. A rough collie's owner wrote that a slightly blurry phone photo still came back with the blaze exactly right; that is the cartoon doing its job.
How are the tesserae cut and set?
With a hammer and hardie, one piece at a time, then pressed into lime mortar on a 12 mm sealed birch panel. Nothing is printed and nothing is cast; a machine has never touched the panel.
- Smalti: glass melted with metal oxides and poured into slabs, cut on the hardie so each face is fresh
- Ceramic: fired and glazed by a potter two streets away, cut the same way
- Tesserae of 8–14 mm, the size varying with what the cartoon asks for
- Lime mortar as the bed, set the way the basilicas were
- The surface levelled by hand as the pieces go in
What is in each piece, and why, is on the materials page. The setting is the slowest part of the fortnight and the part no photograph of the finished panel shows.
What happens after the setting?
The joins are grouted, the surface is cleaned and waxed, the panel is checked against the approved design, and the back is signed. The last joins take the longest.
- Grout: pressed into every join once the mortar has set, then the excess comes off
- Clean: each face of glass and glaze wiped until it reads clear
- Wax: the finish that seals the surface and brings the colour up
- Check: the finished panel held against the design you approved
- Sign: our signature on the back, beside the keyhole hanger
How is it packed and sent?
In a double-walled crate with foam corners, tracked end to end. Every panel is made within two weeks of approval, then posted, and we ship worldwide.
Checkout works out the postage and any customs charges, and shows the estimate for your country. What the two weeks hold, and what can stretch them, is in How long a mosaic portrait takes.
Who does which part?
Tedooo draws it; we set it. The design gets your approval and the payment goes through Tedooo; our artisans cut, set, grout and seal the panel in our US studio.
| Stage | Who | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Design | Tedooo | Drawn from your photo or your words in about a minute, free, as many times as you like |
| Approval | You | You say yes to one design; nothing is charged until you check out |
| Checkout | Tedooo | The order is placed and paid through Tedooo; cutting waits for the payment to land |
| Cartoon, cutting, setting | Tesera | Traced full size, cut with a hammer and hardie, set in lime mortar on sealed birch |
| Grout, wax, signature | Tesera | Grouted, cleaned, waxed, checked against the design and signed on the back |
| Crate | Tesera | Double-walled, foam corners, tracked, within two weeks of approval |
Questions this leaves
Does a machine cut or set any of it?
No. A machine has never touched the panel. The tesserae are cut with a hammer and hardie and set one at a time by our artisans in our US studio. The only technology in the making is at the start, where Tedooo draws the design from your photo.
Can I change the design after I approve it?
The approved design is what we set, which is the reason you sign off on it before any money changes hands. Before you approve, swap the words or the photo and draw once more; there is no limit and no charge until you say yes to one.
What if the drawn design is not right?
Run it again with different words or a different photo; it costs nothing. If it is still not there, our artists will draw it by hand instead. Tell us in the note field when you send it, and one of the artists will be in contact that day to talk about the photo.
Do you check the design against my photo?
Yes, before we start. The design is held against your photograph and the cartoon is traced from the two together. One buyer wrote that we put two questions to her about the photo before we began, and both were the right ones; that is the check.
