Friday, February 24, 2006

Submission guidelines for magazine

A friend posted a link to a wonderful magazine called Belle Armoire that is now starting to produce jewelry issues. I'm thinking about submitting a project I am now making that I will post in the catalog at some point. The link for jewelry submissions is here.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Blue Vessel Photo

This is my favorite vessel so far. It is made of lovely Satake light blue glass that shades down into white. I hadn't planned on this effect, but it happened, and it looks sweet. The bands of dichroic glass around it are a nice touch, too. I wore it to school on Thursday, and there were so many compliments on it!

The vessel does open and has a stopper made from Sculpey. It's
available for purchase in the boutique.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

The secret is out....

What was the big project in my previous entries? I made handmade bookmarks as gifts for each of my students, and each one had a bead on it. So a big part of last weekend was making 24 beads, plus a couple extra for those that cracked! The children received their gifts today, which is why I can leak the secret.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Going to study with Tink!

It's so exciting. I just signed up for a class in Connecticut with Tink of blackswampglassworks. It's on Saturday at Tin City Art Glass. It'll be great to see her again, and to improve my lampworking skills. She'll be teaching all kinds of skills and techniques. What a blast!

Photos, as promised

Today was fun. Lampworking was a priority, since I needed to finish that top-secret big project. I woke up to a raging blizzard, which made ventilation interesting. I keep the sliding glass door to the basement open with a big fan pointed toward it and blowing outward on "Hi". Today, because of the winds, we had lots of snow blown against the door, plus the wind kept wanting to blow into the basement. That led to a few times when it seemed my flame would go out, but it survived in the end.

In addition to the big project, I made a couple of fun things for myself. One was another attempt at a hollow bead, which started out better but ultimately was destroyed by bead release that cracked and fell off. The other was a vessel that I like better than I've liked any I've made so far. Maybe I'll post pics tomorrow (which is a snow day, hooray!).

Here are photos of the projects from yesterday.

This is the burgundy and pink vessel I made, with accents of gold dichroic glass. I made the stopper for it out of flexible Sculpey. The only problem with it is that the bottom was too thin, so when I was cleaning out the bead release, the cleaner went through. Now it's sort of more a vessel bead than a vessel that would hold anything. So on today's vessel, I made the bottom much thicker.


Here is my first attempt at a hollow bead. The photo doesn't look as pretty as the bead itself, which I really like. There is a big bubble in the center, and golden dichroic swirls on the outside. The blue color in the center just comes from reflections from the ends.

Maybe I'll get to do more on our snow day tomorrow!

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Got Gas, Will Melt Glass

Yesterday I bought a couple of cans of MAPP gas towards making something I can't reveal yet, because it's a gift for someone who may read this blog. So today, I made lots of beads, and I ran out of mandrels for the first time! I have been using only the larger mandrels because the smaller diameter ones I got from someone else are all bent, so they produce consistently non-round beads. I really need to buy more mandrels.

The glass I used was all Satake glass again today, because I can work it faster with my Hothead. My favorite color is this lovely periwinkle blue; however, it is dreadfully prone to gooiness. Even after it's been out of the flame for a while, it wants to keep moving, and I have never been able to get it to not pick up the pattern from the kiln bottom, even if I wait a long time before putting it in to anneal. On the other hand, it cools quickly, and if I reintroduce the rod to the flame too fast, the rod shatters! Today I tried covering it with clear, so we'll see how that works.

My two fun projects tonight were trying to make a hollow bead and making another vessel. I was amazed that the "hollow" bead turned out with as much of a bubble as it did; the clear glass got too gloppy and was hard to form together. The vessel turned out nice, I hope. I also experimented with putting a bit of dichroic on both. Hopefully the different COEs won't cause too much stress on the glass. We'll see when the annealing cycle is done!

Pictures to come, to be taken on the very snowy, blizzardy day tomorrow!

P.S. Happy Birthday Rebecca, and Hi to all the girls at the party!

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

First Vessel

Some time had passed since my previous lampworking adventure, and I was looking for something to inspire me. I wanted to make a nice bead for Noni, the mother of a wonderful fifth-grader, and a fellow artist. She picked up some coral beads for me in India when she went there over vacation, and rather than accept payment, she asked for a bead. Earlier she had bought my collector's set of beads from my "That's Clever!" appearance.

Inspiration arrived when I found the first online tutorial for making a vessel that I found truly accessible and valuable. I decided to give it a try.

I used Satake glass, because that was the only glass I thought could stay hot enough in my little Hothead to work a vessel. Unfortunately, when I went to make the vessels, I found that I'd neglected to buy more gas! So it was on the dregs I worked, and the first vessel suffered from lack of time. It had to be put in the kiln unfinished. The second one fared better, but I liked the third one best, even though I had to change tanks in the middle of doing the final shaping. I popped the vessel in the kiln, then pulled it back out to work it again, handling the very hot mandrel with a leather glove. Didn't get a lot of spinning done, but it came out okay anyway.

Since I'd made the bead for the vessel topper too big, I cast about for a suitable substitute, since I wanted to give her the gift right away. There they were - lovely funky silver beads that fit the shape perfectly! The one hard part now is finding a cork to fit. Where do those tiny corks come from? I cut down part of a wine cork for this one. If you know the answer, please put it in a comment below.

I finished off the necklace with wire wrapping and a handmade chain on which to hang the vessel. I think it turned out nice, although, as Noni's younger son pointed out, it does resemble a carrot!