The Ultimate Glass Art Creation ... The Glass Fashion Show

This is a bucket-list item. If you work glass, hot, warm or cold - at least once in your life you should attend this. Even better - would be to participate!

Going to this will make you feel like you are partying on the Riviera. Nevermore will you be awed by celebrity events. You will watch Fashion Week and the Oscars and Emmy night and Ecstasy Raves and Lady Gaga Concerts and think to yourself - "Ha! I've been to the Glass Fashion Show!"

And you might not want to put it off - because Laura keeps swearing that each one she does will be the last.  

Two years - that is long enough to make the costume. What would you do ... if you were to make a fabulous wearable art piece - in glass? Glass Corset? Cinderella Slipper Hat? Medusa Snake Dress? Crocheted Wire Ballgown with a Handmade Bead in every stitch? Think of the possibilities - then email Laura and pitch your idea! (Email address in the graphic below.)

Photography Trick

Here's a kind of fun little trick for photographing beads outside in bright sunshine - always good for showing them off, but keeping a nice clean, uncluttered background.

It looks like I'm holding them up to the sky, right? And then messed with the exposure to get a dark sky for contrast.

Actually - I am shooting them against the backdrop of the windows of my van. The tinted side windows reflect a darker version of the sky, giving me a clutter free backdrop, with nice contrast. I was holding the beads about 18 inches away, making it easy to find a position where I am not shooting my own reflection.

Easy. And if you don't have a van with tinted windows, surely someone on the block does. Way to get funny looks from the neighbors, wandering around taking pictures of someone else's vehicle. ;-)

Sundered Heart

Just a little eye-candy tonight. I don't get much play-time on the torch these days - heck - I don't get much time on the torch at all - so just sharing these.

The sundered heart, you may remember - is a tribute to heartbreak - pain and sorrow and having to carry on.

Kind of a heavy burden for glass.

Emergency Bead Rescue

Don't you just hate it when you spend a lot of time on a bead, and then, after it is out of the kiln, something dumb happens like you crack the end pulling it off the mandrel. Argh.

This was an flamework and enameled, sculpted goddess figure that I cracked and chipped the bottom bead hole on. I had it on my bench when I was trying to figure out what to do with some left-over 2-part epoxy clay. I fashioned a quick tail and turned the bead into a pendant, added some swarovski rhinestone scales, and the brushed gunmetal loop at the bottom was a bead that happened to match the grey glass of the bead perfectly.

In order to pull it all together, I think I might have to go back and do something at the top of the bead, but you can see, the mixed media approach has some potential for salvaging an otherwise scrapped bead!For sure I will glue a looped bail into the top to hang it from.

Two-part epoxy clay - there are various brands, Apoxie, Crystal Clay, and Ceralun (Swarovski's house brand). They are all good. My personal preference is the Ceralun - it has the nicest colour and working characteristics. Not the most colours - but the colours it has are awesome. Apoxie is my second favorite (well, my fave until I found the Ceralun), good working characteristics and a fair range of colours. Crystal Clay has more colours, but I find it a bit gooey to work with. But I'm talking subtle differences here. They are all strongly adhesive, so they stick to the glass without any additional product, and that's what is holding the rhinestones too. It cures overnight without any additional heating. Read the instruction on the box - it's dead easy to use.

Effetre 227 Caribbean Sea - Old batch vs New Batch

 Caribbean Sea is a layered colour, a transparent core with an opaque outer layer. The result is a lovely, streaky look when worked. The more you work it, the better it looks.

The new batch is a little different, so I tried them side by side. One end of the bead is the old batch, and one end is the new, BUT, I'm sorry, I lost track of which was which.

But they are both really pretty. If you love blues and greens, you'll love this glass - whichever batch you get! 

Effetre Ebony & Ivory

Just a quick note - find this glass and buy all of it that you can!

This is Ebony and Ivory, and appears to be layered rods of ivory and intense black. There are different batches of it - I think I might have gotten some "D" batch.

It is freakin' awesome - it looks like - well - check out the photo, which I shot on my phone because I was so excited about these - it looks like silvered ivory.

No idea how long this will be available or if it will be a regular item.

Get this. Stockpile it. You've been told! Freakin' Awesome!

Pot-Melt - using Ceramic Dams

In the past - I've been asked about "something about using a flowerpot to melt glass ... . " This is the technique.

The calculation he gives for quantity is really interesting, and the end result would look totally amazing sliced into thin layers and turned into pendants, or wrapped around a bead like an encasement layer. Or even bent into bracelets ...

If you are using ends of rods, you can toss them in, or arrange them standing upright, sorted by colour.

Having a tall enough kiln is really the biggest issue for most of us. 

And in other glassy news ... 2 D Glass

And in other glassy news - the thinnest sheet of glass ever made - by accident, of course - was photographed to reveal the arrangement of the atoms in the glass. The glass sheet is only one molecule thick - or about as thick as a plastic grocery bag. ;-)

Science still doesn't understand glass completely.

Maybe someone will invent transparent aluminum ... ?

Room temperature glass is not a liquid

I've said this before. Glass at room temperature is a solid. It shares some interesting characteristics with fluids, but it's a solid. It is not slowly flowing and that is absolutely not why old windows are thicker at the bottom.

It's more solid than lead.


Read this:

Does Glass Flow?

http://www.cmog.org/article/does-glass-flow

 and this

A Common Misconception

http://blog.cmog.org/2013/09/05/a-common-misconception/

Nothing New ... 2000 year old technique

Just in case you thought silver in beads was something new ... Analysis of Ancient Beads from Germany dating from 30 - 60 AD, shows a layer or silver, encased with more glass.

Click on the link to read the original article.

Interesting!

Thoughts on Scum on beads

Recently - I got a phone call from someone who has just set up a her own home studio. Naturally - she is enjoying the freedom to torch when ever she wants, the luxury of not having to tidy up (as opposed to a shared, commercial studio), and the instant (well, almost) gratification of being able to see her beads as soon as the kiln has cooled down.

However, what she was not enjoying was that instead of the sparkling little gems that she was used to making, each bead, though perfectly formed and the envy of many - was a little dull, a little lifeless. Close inspection - with magnification - revealed a faint, subtle but visible, scum over the transparent glass, with a little pitting. She was at her wit's end trying to figure out what was happening. We discussed gas to oxygen ratios, her concentrator, the difference between natural gas and propane - adjusting the flame - nothing seemed to be the solution.

Finally - I said I would drop by  and take a look at the set up - to see if I could diagnose it in person. When I got there, she told me, "well - this is embarrassing - I fixed it."

And indeed - the latest crop of beads were sparkly and delicious.

What changed?

She changed to a fresh tank of propane.

That was it - the only difference.

So next time you are struggling with scum - consider your fuel source. Maybe a new tank of propane is in order?

Couldn't hurt.

Delightful Glass Blowing video

This is an absolutely delightful video of production glass blowing.  From another time. When glass blowers lit their cigarettes off the glass ...

Worth watching.

How It's Made: Millefiore Paperweights

How It's Made - a Canadian "reality" show - is one of the best things on television!

Here, they show millefiore paperweights.

CiM 711 & 712: Cookie Dough and Hazelnut Mousse Comparison

Cookie Dough, as I mentioned a few days ago, looks a bit greenish, and Hazelnut Mousse more creamy.

On the left, the Mousse, and on the right side of the bead, the Dough. Here, you can easily see the greenish tone to the Dough.

And with the rods - Dough on the top, Mousse below. The difference is more obvious in the bead than on the rod - which look very similar.

Interesting colours. Definitely warrant more investigation.

CiM 712: Hazelnut Mousse

CiM 712, Hazelnut Mousse, a warm, pale cafe au lait colour - almost an ivory, but a little warmer than the colour (from Effetre) that we have come to know as ivory.

I'm sure this one bears more experimenting with.

CiM 711: Cookie Dough

CiM 711 Cookie dough - a taupey beige colour, with a hint of green to it.

Two self coloured beads. Just a hint of green. A strange colour - wonder if it is like opal yellow or stone ground. Need to try with silver. 

CiM 521: Eventide

CiM 521 Eventide is a nice, dark, transparent grey. Transparent grey is generally a lovely colour to work with - and this is no exception.

I wish there was a colour that is the colour that transparent grey is when it is hot though, that lovely purple. Now that would be a colour to have!

The two on the left, self-coloured, and the one on the right, over white.

CiM 713: Nutmeg Ltd Run

CiM 713 - Nutmeg - is an opaque peach colour - appears to be similar to Coral - it goes dark grey when hot.

On the left, self coloured bead, on the right, dots of Eff. Light Sky Blue. 



The rod has a bit of shimmer to it, so it looks different colours depending on the angle, so that's why the beads look lighter than the unworked rod in one picture, and darker in the other.

There appears to be a slight reaction between the turquoise dots (right bead) and the Nutmeg (which also happens with Effetre Coral.

Nice warm colour - could work as a skin tone or for dog or horse beads.

CiM 442: Aloe Juice

CiM 442 - Aloe Juice. And Juicy Aloe is exactly what it looks like. A lovely medium transparent green that is not too yellow - a peridot green if you will. Nice.

On the left, two self coloured spacers. Next, over white. (And an all-white marker bead on the end.)

Very juicy.

Leaf Masher - Finally figured it out.

Here's another tool that I've had kicking around for years - and I finally figured out what to do with it. A shout out goes to Deb M - I'm pretty sure I stole this idea from you - although that's not what I thought at the time! Naturally.

You saw the bell flower bead press flowers? Well - similar idea. Stainless steel wire, ball of hot glass, mash.

Instant leaf!

Some people are making these as headpins, but you know, when I make them, they are more like "as-big-as-my-head pins."

I actually wore one of the flowers and one of the leaves in my hair. Just poked the wire into my updo, and they stayed there all day. Kind of cute, I thought.

 This is the wire I used. I have since experimented and found that the smaller gauges work very well too.