Mykola Demkov from Lityn, Vinnytsia region, has made an original mosaic of bottle caps to decorate his home. One wall depicts poppies and pansies, the second one – tulips, dandelions, and cornflowers. For the decorations he also used pebbles from the river, colored gravel from a local quarry, pieces of glass and decorative tiles. He denies having the artistic talent, for he has worked his entire life as a telecom specialist, but he has also been fond of construction since youth. Every neighbor has a gift from Mykola. One has a fireplace built by Demkov, another got his help in setting the place for barbecue in the yard, a third one got his fence built. In short, Demkov has built more than one street.
“I did not build my own house – it’s my wife’s, she got it from the parents. It is more than 35 years old, but it was built with quality, and it’s still warm and cozy. Everything that is on the yard I built with my hands. I have a windmill and a well, and some storks, who did not make it to warmer climates,” jokes Mykola. “I’ve been thinking how I could decorate my small house to make it different, to make it stand out from the others. And incidentally I saw over the Internet how an artisan created a rug from bottle caps – it was a picture of dog for his daughter. I enjoyed the idea, so I decided to experiment with it and make a mosaic from caps on the walls of the shed (it was my first). And to combine beauty and practicality, I decided to insulate the walls first, and then decorate them with mosaics. I bought some foam, laid it out on the wall, then some tile adhesive and the ornaments on top. It turned out pretty original. Therefore, I decided to experiment further. Past summer, I decorated the facade of the house this way. The first pictures were pansies. Each flower took an average of a thousand caps. Overall, my house now has almost 20,000 colored caps.”
Mykola does not make a big secret of his technique. He says that it’s simple: you take an embroidery scheme and transfer the image on the wall: one cross – one cap. “First you need to pick the embroidery. Then take a pencil and ruler, line out the entire area of the wall in cells, transfer the scheme, add the adhesive, and lay out the caps one by one. It is not always possible to transfer colors, for bright caps are hard to find – so I paint some of the caps to achieve a particular shade,” continues Demkov. “Ideas are born one by one. It takes time, but I’m in no hurry – I can fantasize and enjoy.”
This way, Mykola has “grown” poppies, dandelions, daffodils, cornflowers, and other amazing flowers near his windows. The artisan complemented the flowers with the Podillia diamond ornament laid out from construction waste – decorative tiles, colored stones and glass. “A house like pysanka,” admire the neighbors. The pensioner has many plans. In the spring, he wants to “embroider” peonies on the side wall of the house. To this purpose, he has already gathered six thousand colored elements. In the yard, he is going to plant ornamental pines and wild flowers. But his biggest dream is a small chapel, which he wants to build under a birch in memory of his deceased wife.
