Every large project, I find, requires a different approach. it will depend on what type of situation it’s to be installed in, where it’s to be installed geographically (close to the studio or a long way away), whether I’m to instal it or a tradesman, and just as importantly the type of design.

So it’s impossible to give a prescriptive tutorial for handling large projects, rather I’ll explain how I handled this particular project.

This work titled “Medusa” was basically a copy of a design provided by the client, and one I would consider very simple. It’s a 1.5m medallion style of work to be installed in 600mm of water about 2.5 hours from my studio. I was to be responsible for laying the work in advance of the tilers, and they would then surround the medallion in black porcelain tiles & then grout the entire area.

Since I knew I was driving to the location & handling the actual installation myself, I decided to reverse lay the tiles on craft paper and cut the design into “jigsaw” type pieces in a size suitable for laying. Installation would be a 1 day job and I would need to use a fixing system suitable for a permanent underwater situation.

I apologize for not being able to provide photos of the finished work (hopefully the client will eventually send some) and not detailing how I removed the paper and grouted – as I didn’t handle this part.

	First step was to lay 3 lengths of 600mm craft paper on my concrete studio floor, with a single length of masking tape to hold them together.
	Then I transferred the design to the craft paper in full size.The entire design was coded in different coloured pens to enable a logical and well organised installation at the other end.
	My coding went as follows:- Red pen for the colour separations, black pen to indicate how I would cut the design into smaller pieces, 3 different coloured pens to indicate the different colours in the design (for guidance as I was laying the piece on paper), green pen to mark across the black lines (making it easy to line up at installation) & all pieces numbered in mirror reverse so they would be the right way up as I laid the work.In all, it took several hours to get the design down and coded completely!
	As usual, I had all my precutting prepared in advance.
	Now I cut the design in pieces along the black lines as planned. Due to the size involved, I broke the design down into three sections, and set the “jigsaw” up on three separate 1200mm boards to make it easy to lay and transport later.
	I also tested the border in advance face up without glue. I needed to have a strategy for consistently laying the border around the design (and wanted a peek at what it would look like)

	Now we’re on site, and I’m backbuttering the first piece ready to instal onto the concrete floor. Make sure all the gaps are filled & there is good glue contact on all tiles right to the edge.
	Of course I could backbutter several pieces at once, trowel the concrete floor and instal that way, but since I was on my own, I decided to bead glue directly on the mosaic & instal each piece individually. Trying to work too fast on my own could result in the glue “skinning” and poor adhesion.Notice I’ve used nice thick beads, and made sure the edges had very good coverage. If you take your time & ensure good coverage, this is a very effective method of installation, and one I’ll sometimes use in the studio on a larger piece too.
	Once the glue is beaded onto the back of the mosaic, I’ll move it to the installation site on a tile.
	Since the wallpaper glue & craft paper works so well, there’s no problem lifting the piece into position as shown…
	…and positioning it before patting down. I’ll use the back of a tile to pat it down to a level & keep the entire mosaic surface level & reasonably flat.If the tilers were in first, I would have taken more care in establishing a level, but by using a thick layer of adhesive, I knew they would have no problem adjusting to the mosaic. Also, we were going under 600mm of water, so establishing a fixed level was unimportant really.This installation would take a lot more precision if we were going on a foot traffic floor.
	The mosaic was small in relation to the overall area of the pond, and the design was directional so I wanted to give the owner the choice of exactly where it would go & which direction it would face.Achieving this was simply a matter of finding centre of the design, drawing a crosshair from centre, and making the same marking directly on the concrete (to the customers specifications).Then I simply laid the centre piece first, and worked the installation from that point.
	Progress photo of how I worked from the centre to the edge.
	Completed installation. This is how I left the site.Hopefully at some point I will update the tutorial with photos of the completed work.Customers reported that the tilers struck no problems with the installation & the work looks brilliant.