Sunday, October 25, 2015

Transparent-opaque mixtures

One of the glass rods which I worked with in the "40 shades of blue" project at Spruill Arts Center last summer was a rod which looked like it was a mixture of opaque sky blue and transparent blue-grey.  It was labeled "Capri", but it wasn't the shade of aqua blue normally associated with that color.  That gave me the idea of mixing transparent and opaque glass.  I take two rods, tape them together and use them as one rod to layer glass on my mandrel.  This is the result:


I like the effect and I'll be using the beads in my jewelry.  Watch my Etsy site (www.etsy.com/shop/DeborahDRoss).

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Devardi greens

My kiln is waiting for a new relay, so in the meantime I'll report on a project I've been working: playing with a stash of Devardi green glass I recently purchased from Amazon.  The glass is a mixture of rods of various colors and transparancies:








Using different frits, enamels and pixie dust, I've come up with an interesting assortment of basic round beads to use in future jewelry projects:


I especially like pixie dust---more on that later.