40 shades of blue

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, Spruill Center for the Arts is holding a gallery exhibition entitled 40x.  Spruill students and instructors are encouraged to submit work which relates to 40 of something.  Those of us enrolled in Margo's Lampworking class decided on a theme of "40 shades of blue".  We each brought in various shades of blue glass rods, divided them up and made donut beads from each of the rods.  Here are the beads as they came out of the kiln:

Each of the students in the class has the option of submitting their own take on 40, so check back and see what I come up with.   The submissions will be on display at Spruill from October 9, 2015 to January 4, 2016.  Hope you can stop by!

Copper cut outs

In a second week of working with copper at Spruill Arts Center, we used copper cut outs.  Using paper punches and very thin craft copper sheet (greater than 38 gauge), we cut out butterflies, leaves, dragonflies, etc.  and applied them to glass beads.  If you apply the cut outs directly to the hot glass bead, then encase with clear, the copper will burn to a red color.  If you encase the cut out with a gather of hot clear, then add that to the bead, the piece will retain its metallic copper sheen.   Below are some of the results:

All of the beads but the one on the right were made with a white base bead with copper foil overlay followed by addition of frit, then the copper cut outs.  The bead on the right was made on a white base bead with a mixed green frit followed by the copper cut outs using the two different methods of positioning the cut out.  Looks like autumn!