Red Sky At Night

Red sky at night, sailor's delight.

Red sky in the morning, sailor's warning

As it so often happens, I get inspired by some little thing and have to get it out of my head and onto a mosaic piece where it belongs.  In this case,  Mary and I recently made a trip to the Gulf of Mexico and saw a number of sailing ships and sunsets.  I started to sketch some of these and came up with this drawing.

Red Sky At Night Sketch

Weather systems typically move from west to east, and red clouds result when the sun shines on their undersides at either sunrise or sunset. At these two times of day, the sun's light is passing at a very low angle through a great thickness of atmosphere commonly known as The Belt of Venus. The result of which is the scattering out of most of the shorter wavelengths — the greens, blues, and violets — of the visible spectrum, and so sunlight is heavy at the red end of the spectrum. If the morning skies are red, it is because clear skies to the east permit the sun to light the undersides of moisture-bearing clouds coming in from the west. Conversely, in order to see red clouds in the evening, sunlight must have a clear path from the west in order to illuminate moisture-bearing clouds moving off to the east. There are many variations on this piece of lore, but they all carry the same message.

After the sketch, I transferred the drawing to an already prepared frame and began cutting and gluing the glass tiles.

Red Sky At Night Transferred to Frame

From Shakespeare's poem "Venus and Adonis"

Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd
Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.

Half Way Home

And here is what the piece looks like after the cutting and gluing is complete.

The Colors I used are as follows:

Boat
- China White (A20) Hakatai
- Teak (B32) Hakatai

Sky
- Tomato, Mosaic Mercantile
- Poppy, Mosaic Mercantile
- Canary, Mosaic Mercantile
- Pumpkin, Mosaic Mercantile

Water
- Lilac (C12) Hakatai
- Deep Blue (C81) Deep Blue

Cutting and Gluing Complete

Next we do a little grouting using black grout.

Grouting

And here is the final product of "Red Sky at Night".

Red Sky At Night Final