A Study in Concrete

So I am off to try something new! I've been wanting to work with concrete again. I worked with this medium a little bit when I was in college. It was a study combining concrete with fired ceramics. Now I'm looking to make a little sculpture to experiment with concrete and glass mosaic. 

I built an armature using stucco lath (also called stucco mesh, or stucco netting) and I filled it with cardboard because I knew that I wanted this to be hollow to help with the overall weight of the piece. 
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I then did some research on sculptable concrete. There wasn't a lot of information out on the internet about this but I did find a YouTube video posted by dperry428 that worked great! This mixture actually works a lot like clay.  I fist applied a skim coat onto the piece as pictured. 
Ingredients: 
portland cement - 10 cups
fine sand - 5 cups
metakaolin - 2 cups
PVA fiber - 3/4 cup
Mix all the dry ingredients. 
Mix in the liquid (3 parts water, 1 part acrylic admix) 5 cups
​Add more liquid by hand to reach the texture and viscosity you desire for your sculpture

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After the skim coat had dried, I came back and applied another layer of concrete. I intentionally left a recessed area that I intended to fill with glass mosaic. 

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Once dry, I used an orbital hand sander to sand the piece. The PVA fiber threads were then burned off using a propane torch. 

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I then applied an assortment of acid stains from Direct Colors. The colors I ordered in my test kit were: Azure Blue, Avocado ,Sea Grass, Desert Amber, and Coffee Brown. 

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Next I created a template for the mosaic area and composed the glass pieces. 

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I used white thinset so that there was the ultimate reflection of light through the glass. I worked in sections and adhered all the glass to the recessed area in the sculpture. 

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Finally, I applied colorant to the non-sanded grout and grouted the whole piece. 

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