Roy Creates A Paper Roman 'Cave Canem' (Beware of the dog) Mosaic

When we were looking at Roman mosaics this week, Roy and I discovered that many of the specific designs used have special meanings. Some of the mosaics were difficult to understand, but we found one style which was straight forward and captured our imagination, the 'Cave Canem' mosaics.

Roman mosaics were detailed and took a great deal of time to make. Each piece, be it a pebble in early mosaics or a carefully cut tesserae was individually set into the mosaic, making it a long and complex process. Some mosaics, called emblēmata used tiny tesserae, as little as 1millimetre square to make a picture which looked like a painting. These were often made in the mosaic artists studio and then set into the floor later. They were often surrounded by simple mosaic patterns. Emblemata were quite rare as they were very difficult to make and very expensive. If you would like to learn more about this type of mosaic click here. Despite this mosaics were a very popular way of decorating the floors and walls of important buildings and high status homes. They were made using mainly stone tesserae, though some of the more elaborate and expensive ones have pieces made from glass or even precious stones and gold! Sometimes they also had other items, like shells, incorporated into them.

In the main, there were two general styles of Roman mosaic, polychromatic (or multicoloured) or monochromatic (black and white). Polychromatic mosaics had existed for a long time by the time they were being created by the Romans. There were not very many monochromatic mosaics made before the Romans, but they were very popular in the Roman era. Roman mosaics often had a specific purpose or theme which was used to reflect the room it was decorating. In bathrooms Neptune, the God of the Ocean, was often portrayed while in dining rooms it was far more likely to be Dionysis, the God of wine and revelry. To find out more about mosaic motifs and themes, click here.

One popular and famous mosaic theme was the Cave Canem mosaic, which showed a dog and sometimes had the words Cave Canem written on it. Cave Canem means 'beware of the dog' and it was often placed in the threshold (door) of a house. This is the type of mosaic which Roy has decided to make with you today. He has chosen very famous example of this mosaic from Pompeii, and you can see the original here.

Cave Canem Mosaic:

You will need:

• The Cave Canem pattern sheet
• • Download Cave Canem pattern (You will need adobe acrobat)
    
  • If you have a dog you could take a photo of your own dog, or find a picture on the internet, so that it is a more personalised mosaic! Put your dog in instead of the Roman one.
• 1 piece of cardboard to stick your pattern on (a cereal packet is fine)
• Coloured paper - Roy used black, red and light brown, like the original mosaic. You could use magazines or even colour in sheets of paper instead if you like.
• Scissors
• Glue - Roy used PVA glue thinned a little with water but you could just use a glue stick
• A toothpick to help you position your tesserae
• An old paintbrush (for applying the glue)

Note: you could use coloured seeds, shells, pieces of craft foam or even broken egg shell to make your mosaic.

Method:

• Glue your pattern sheet onto the piece of cardboard.
• Cut your pieces of coloured paper into strips and then cut the strips into squares. You will need a range of sizes to ensure the whole picture can be covered (small ones are good for filling in holes). These are your tesserae.

• Put a thin layer of glue onto your pattern sheet. Roy and I only covered a small area at a time, so it didn't dry too fast.
• Stick your tesserae onto the pattern. Roy and I used black for the dog, red for the writing, red for the dogs collar, inside its ears and mouth and light brown for the background. We didn't keep the spots and chain, but you could if you like!

• Leave your mosaic to dry.
• If you like, when your mosaic is dry you can paint a layer of glue over the top to make it a little bit shiny!