More silver glass: Gaia and Clio

In getting ready for the jewelry market at Spruill Center for the Arts, I made more glass beads using new silver glass colors, Gaia and Clio, as well as my old favorites Thallo and Aurae.  i have to confess that i was unable to get any really nice colors out of Gaia.  i found it much harder to work with than Thallo and i wasn't impressed with the colors after encasing:

In the picture, Thallo beads are on the left, Gaia on the right.  The Gaia doesn't look like more than encased emerald green.

The Clio beads were much nicer. showing an interesting range of colors and a nice metallic sheen when encased:

I'll definitely be working with this color more in the future.

Happy New Year and Aurae Glass

Happy New Year!  I hope this finds all my readers well and eager to fulfill their New years resolutions.  Mine will be taking me away from lampwork glass as a hobby.  I still will be working on glass beads, but I won't have as much time as I have had in the past.  Since I won't have as much time to experiment with new techniques, I will be cutting back on my posting schedule:  perhaps once every three to four weeks instead of every two weeks which I have tried to maintain.

For today, I have just a brief note on Aurae glass.  All of the smaller beads shown have been made with my usual technique of wrapping a small coil of Aurae glass on a mandrel, shaping it briefly, reducing it, then encasing with clear:

The result is a pretty shade of blue over a light purple base.  The larger bead was made using Margaret Zinser's technique which I have described before.  I have also tried to add a stripe of Aurae on a bicone bead using transparent dark amethyst or medium transparent blue without much success.  The reduced Aurae doesn't show up very well.  I'll continue to experiment and show you the results if I'm successful.

Christmas icicles

To prepare for the holiday season, we made icicles in Margo's class at Spruill Center for the Arts last week.  We used triangular boro glass.  After untying to a rod of boro glass, we gradually heated the triangular boro glass at one end, and as soon as it was soft, we began to twist the glass, moving down the rod and twisting until we reached the desired length.  My first attempts were uneven, but I soon got the knack of it and produced some nice icicles that I'm going to hand in our kitchen window:

This was my first experience working with boro glass.  It is more viscous than soda lime glass and requires higher heat to melt, but it is nice not to have to anneal the glass.

Berries in the snow

I saw a cute idea for Christmas beads in the December issue of Artisan Jewelry Times.  Just make small, round beads with various shades of Effetre red glass and roll in clear frit:

And here are the earrings I made from them:

I'll enjoy wearing them for the holiday season.

Implosion/petal beads

I'm back at Spruill Arts Center taking bead making classes from Margo Knight.  Our first class was implosion/petal/lotus beads.  I'm not going to try to explain them, but I'll refer you instead to a detailed explanation on Lampwork Etc. by j2canoe entitled appropriately "How to Make the Implosion/Petal Beads".  Here are mine:

These are time consuming to make but worth it in the end.

Thallo silver glass

My next trial of Double Helix silver glass is Thallo, which is a beautiful green which reduces to iris green:

On the top row are two beads made by adding a  stripe of Thallo on the equator,  reducing.  The first is on transparent green, the next on transparent light green.  on the bottom row are two beads made by adding a small amount of Thallo to a mandrel, reducing, then encasing.  I love the turquoise in the first bead.  The last bead is made entirely of Thallo, which is reduced after shaping. 

I'll be taking a break from bead-making for the next week or two to prepare for the Georgia Goldsmiths Guild's Holiday Jewelry Marketplace, which will be held at Holy Innocents' Episcopal Church, 805 Mount Vernon Highway in Atlanta on Friday, November 18, 10 til 4 and Saturday, November 19, 10 til 3.  If you live in the Atlanta area, stop by!  Mentioning this blog will get you 10% anything you buy from my booth.

 

Psyche silver glass

This is the next installment in my series on silver glass, and its based on a tutorial I recently purchased from Anouk Jasperse called Making Silver Glass Sing.  She focuses on Psyche, Triton and Aurae.  Here are the beads I've made using the techniques she describes:

All of these are encased.  I just love the beautiful metallic blue.  For details on the technique, see the tutorial.  Thanks, Anouk!