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.

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!

Silver glass: Ossa

I'm back at my torch, experimenting (or maybe playing is more appropriate) with silver glass.  o started with two rods of Double Helix Ossa which I obtained from a friend.  This glass is a light magenta with inclusions, which reduces to a goldish metallic sheen.  Here are some of the beads I've made with it:

The bead in the upper right is Ossa alone with no reduction.  You can see the light purplish color and the inclusions, very nice but not worth the extra cost of silver glass.  The upper left bead is a swipe of Ossa over opal yellow, Ossa over Effetre purple and Ossa over transparent light purple.  All three have been reduced.  The last one is my favorite.  Although the picture shows more of an amber color, the reduced Ossa shows up very nicely over the light purple in real life.  However, I'm not enthused enough to go out and buy a batch.

Caramel candy

I recently purchased some Double Helix silver glass from Franz Glass and I've been experimenting with the colors.  One idea I found as a free tutorial on Lampwork, Etc.   It's listed as fire opal but it reminds me more of creamy caramel.   You make a base bead out of black,  wrap silver foil around it, burning off the edges but leaving the band intact.  Then you heat a rod of Ekho and when the tip is transparent you, you lay down one or two swirls of the glass around the bead, then encase with clear. 

In addition to using black as my base bead, I tried butter pecan (CIM 703), shown in the middle, and honey crunch (Vetrofond 990), shown at the end.  I think I prefer the lighter background,  They look good enough to eat!