Top of the Shop – Spawn of FlameI tried the yellow and beige lampwork bead again. It matched my vision much better than my first attempt.
Yellow Glass Lampwork Bead
Rosemarie Hanus makes usable beads too in her home studio. See these beads at Etsy, Art Fire, or her Spawn of Flame website.
Here is one of my beads from the online Finding Your Voice Workshop. It is a lampwork glass bead that, well, the concept is great, but the bead is probably one of the ugliest bead that I have ever made. I have seen others make this claim, and when I see the bead, I think that the bead is just fine. You be the judge here.
The assignment was to take a photograph of a bead that we make often and have good familiarity with it. In a photo editing program, we were to invert the colors and then actually make the resulting bead. When I did this, I discovered that I have already made a lot of these combinations already. I did find one to try – a blue bead that inverted into a nice yellow bead.
So here are the two bead photos. The blue one is the original bead. The second is inverted – I left the background untouched (because I can).
“Wow!”, I thought to myself – this will be great. Here is the result. I am almost embarrassed to post the picture of the bead, but I don’t think that viewing it will cause you permanent damage. It also might give you a little insight into a lampworker’s not so successful experiments!
The effect that I was trying to achieve was a soft yellow base, with accents of a darker yellow and brown. My choice of glass colors not play well together and made mostly mud. The shape however, is impeccable. What do you think? Could this be one of the ugliest beads ever?
My Ugliest Bead Ever (maybe...)
Rosemarie Hanus makes usable beads too in her home studio. See these beads at Etsy, Art Fire, or her Spawn of Flame website.
I continued making some more cable beads, and I thought that it would be interesting to add some dots in between the cables on my cable beads.
These dots are made from a special glass that contains a lot of silver. When worked with a flame that does not have a lot of oxygen in the mix (called a reducing flame), it makes a very pretty, varied pattern. I put some clear dots on top to magnify the effect.
I really like this! What do you think? Am I going in a good direction?
I am now starting a new round of Sylvie Lansdowne’s Facebook workshop; we are calling it “People Who Won’t Leave”! This is actually the second week of this round; it will take me a little while to get the nerve to show you my first week’s bead – it was less than aesthetically pleasing.
Our assignment was to use something from our closet to inspire us. I do tend to wear a lot of solids and textured clothing, so at first I was a little stumped. Then I decided to use a knitted cable sweater as my inspiration, and to draw the cables with different colors.
Knitted Cable Fabric Swatch
This is a beautiful stitch and it really makes me want to get my knitting machine(s) out again! I wanted to make the bead very textured, and to emphasize where the cables “crossed over”. There were a few technical challenges that I had to think through before making the bead, but I got through that and made my first bead:
Cable Bead - First One!
For “extra credit”, we were allowed to make more beads using different color schemes. Once I had made the first bead, I thought of some techniques that I could do to make the cables more uniform; I tried that on a few more beads.
Yellow Cable Bead
I like these and plan on expanding this concept. I even have some more ideas on how to streamline the process – right now, ot takes me a long time to make one!
Rosemarie Hanus makes beads in her home studio. Almost all of them use Silvered Ivory Stringer – Look at these beads at Etsy, Art Fire, or her Spawn of Flame website.
I promise – I will finish this Silvered Ivory Stringer Revealed tutorial in this post. (In case you missed it, part 1 is here, part 2 is here, and part 3 is here.)
Now, I heat the plug. I heat from the bottom – my rationale is this: the silver is going to burn off, and it might as well fume the ivory while that is happening. I really have no idea if this makes a difference, but that is what I do.
Heating the Plug
When I heat the plug, I always try and aim toward the center of the plug. It is hard to explain and the pictures don’t show it very well… But when I’m heating the right side of the plug, my right hand is closer to me, and when I’m heating the left side, my left hand is closer to me. The motion is sort of like steering a bicycle. When the glass starts to melt, my self talk changes the name of the plug to a gather; I’m sure that this makes all of the difference [said with a touch of sarcasm].
More Heat - Let's Call it a Gather Now!
When the gather is thoroughly heated, I bring it out of the flame, and wait. How long? Until it is ready. I know when it is ready, because I have made lots of them, and I just know. It is mushy and soft, but not runny – it also looks different; I have heard it described as “forming a skin”.
I often stand up at this point. If this gather drops, I do NOT want it on my lap.
Gather Out of the Heat - Wait!!!
Pull the Gather Just a Little - Wait!
Once it stops drooping on its own, I start to pull harder and faster. The slower the pull at this point, the thicker the final stringer will be.
Pull a Little Faster
Finally, I pull firmly on the finished stringer. I wait 10 or 15 seconds at the very least to make sure that the stringer stays straight. See the nice lines on this twisty? Perfect! I finish by flame cutting it in the center and then trimming the stringer from the punties with my tile cutters.
Silvered Ivory Stringer
All material contained within this Tutorial is protected by Copyright, “Spawn of Flame” Rosemarie Hanus, 2009; all rights reserved.
Rosemarie Hanus makes beads in her home studio. Almost all of them use Silvered Ivory Stringer – Look at these beads at Etsy, Art Fire, or her Spawn of Flame website.
Now, the next step in this Silvered Ivory Stringer Revealed tutorial is to apply the silver to the ivory. (In case you missed it, part 1 is here and part 2 is here.)
I gently heat the plug, concentrating the heat near the outside. I try to keep the inside from getting warm or the plug will start to stretch out. This is not a good thing, because if it gets too long, the foil will not reach the end of the stringer. So, if it does get too hot, just tidy it up with the mashers again until it cools.
Ok, so now I finally have the outside of the plug hot, and the inside just right. Tip – I keep the mashers in my “not rolling” hand in preparation for the next steop. I place the plug onto my marver next to the foil. Doing it this way helps to assure the the end of the foil is attached.
Position Plug on Marver Next to Glass
Then I start rolling the plug toward the foil, onto the foil, and continuing to roll until all of the foil is on the plug. The photos are taken by my lovely assistant, Katie, so they are from the perspective of an observer. My position is actually so that the direction of the rolling action is away from me. I would guess that this whole rolling sequence takes about 3 or 4 seconds. I would like to point out also that the foil does not go all of the way around the plug – I consider this to be a good thing, I believe that it introduces more variety into the final bead.
Roll the Plug onto the Fine Silver
Now I have the foil onto the plug and I use my mashers to secure the foil onto the plug. I want to work fast, so remember at no point in this process have I put the mashers down. They are also still warm from the plug making operation. Mash firmly, but not so much that the plug gets squished out.
Use Mashers to Set the Fine Silver on the Plug
As the plug cools, I use more pressure and also begin to roll the plug a little in the mashers. Then I use the edge of the mashers to finish burnishing the foil onto the plug. I like that foil firmly attached.
Burnish the Silver with Masher Edge
Silvered Ivory Plug Puntied with 2 Clear Rods
Now, I punty the second clear rod to the end of the plug. Just heat the end of the plug and the clear rod and push them together.
Next… the conclusion: Heat and Pull.
All material contained within this Tutorial is protected by Copyright, “Spawn of Flame” Rosemarie Hanus, 2009; all rights reserved.
Rosemarie Hanus makes beads in her home studio. Almost all of them use Silvered Ivory Stringer – Look at these beads at Etsy, Art Fire, or her Spawn of Flame website.
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