How Mosaics Work

A living book, revised as the evidence changes.

How Mosaics Work asks why a mosaic works as an image: what pieces, relationships, light, scale and viewing distance actually do.

It focuses less on technique and more on what viewers see: why an image works from one distance and falls apart from another, how value and direction change perception and why the finished mosaic may behave differently from what its maker expected.

This book will keep developing. When evidence or experiments change my understanding, I will revise it.

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Current edition · Version 7 · November 5, 2026

In 25 illustrated chapters, I show how pieces, gaps, color, and light shape what we see in a mosaic. One ZIP download includes the 231-page PDF, an EPUB, and an offline browser reader.

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