CiM 616 Coronation Day

CiM Coronation Day - a royal purple that is lighter and streakier than the rod itself.

The two beads on the left are self coloured, and the one on the right, I applied white dots and then super heated it and swirled them into the purple base.

I'd have to compare it head to head with Evil Queen or Thai Orchid to say which is darker.

CiM 615 Bubble Bath

Bubble Bath is a pretty, pale pink translucent moonstone glass.

The two beads on the left are self coloured and the one on the right is over white.

Very ethereal.

CiM 526: Ice Floe

CiM Ice Flow is a super pale transparent blue. I mean very, very, very pale. I bet this would be great for aquarium beads. Or try it over silver foil and see how it comes out. Sometimes, the barest wisp of colour is just what you need.

I bet it would etch nicely too. The pale transparents usually do.

Dragon Eye Demo

Last week, at the Glass Gathering, at Sheridan College - I demonstrated making a Dragon's Eye.

Some of you who watched that wanted to see the final version - but it, of course, went into the kiln and who knows what will happen to it next.

Anyway - I made another the next day using the same glasses - and it came out pretty similar.

The iris is a twistie made with Khaos and Triton over ivory.  The dichro is laid down after.

The lids are Terra Nova 2, with dots of something very similar to Triton, but has no label anymore, so that's just my best guess.

I embedded two rings for hanging/attaching - only one is visible in the picture.

A New Direction

The Watcher from the Forest Floor. 18 cm long.

Lately - I have had a certain level of dis-satisfaction with my glass creations. A dissatisfaction that I have come to think of as "the tyranny of the bead hole."

I have come to that place where I do not want to make "beads" anymore - beads being uniform, smooth round objects with neat puckered holes and are destined to be strung onto personal adornment items.

It's not that I don't like beads any more - it has more to do with wanting to break free of the restrictions of making it wearable (glass is heavy, glass is sharp, glass can break), and wanting to move out and explore other aspects of the glass.

I recently had a few "aha" moments - that have opened up doors into new worlds of possibilities.

This is the beginning of what I hope will be a brand new exploration. A new direction in personal vision. ;-)

TAG 104-15 Fire Lotus

The "word on the street" (ha ha) is that Fire Lotus is yummy and easy to use - easier than some of it's cousins.

I think I might have to concur with this as these did come out pretty nice. Some of these striking glasses look very nice when hot, and once they come out of the kiln, they look dark. Oh, if you get enough light on them, they can look ok in a photo, but they just look dark the rest of the time.

The bottom row is, left to right, encased with clear, partially encased, and self-coloured - struck once.

The top row is all three, un-encased, struck once. I like the encased and partially encased ones best. Looks like encasing is the way to go with this one.

CiM 813: Cobblestone

 Cobblestone - nice colour for elephants. A nice warm shade of grey, tends to look different depending on the colours around it - see photos. The variability in the photos is not as evident in real life.

I think this would be a really nice colour in sculptural animals - like, elephants! Seals. Whales. Kittens.

Because ...

... all is vanity, all the way;
Twilight follows the brightest day,
And every cat in the twilight’s gray,
Every possible cat. 

CiM 613 Gypsy

CiM's Gypsy is a dark, dark transparent purple, so dark, in fact, that the rod just looks black. And a bead made with it and nothing else also looks black. (Left-most bead)

But a dot on white reveals it's red-purple berry-juice nature, and the third bead from the left, Gypsy over clear, also shows it's wine-like nature.

Use as dots, in stringer, over clear, whereever you need a deep, intense colour that can stand to be diluted a lot.

Same three beads - strongly back lit.

CiM 614 Jellyfish (Colour Shift)

Meet CiM Jellyfish - a colour shift glass like the colour in commercial beads known as "Alexandrite" - and like the Effetre 081 Dark Lavender.

 This colour of glass looks blue in cool, fluorescent light, and mauve in warm light, like incandescent or sunlight.

This series of photos show the rather remarkable range of colours you will get as you move from one kind of lighting to another.

Pictured to the right, two self coloured beads and Jellyfish encased over white. 

 Quite remarkable, isn't it?

It can be something of a challenge to create with this glass, as you have to coordinate your colours for all types of lighting.

That said - I find it a really nice glass to work. Try it over silver foil sometime.

 This is Jellyfish over EDP (2 on the left) and EDP unencased.

 Those encased EDP beads again.

 Again, the EDP.

Colours that we see are caused by light of specific wavelengths being reflected from the object for us to see. This particular colour reflects light in some very narrow ranges of frequencies. As you move from warm light - with lots of orange in it, to cool light (more blue), there is less of the warm colours available to be reflected, and so the colour of the glass appears to "shift."

It's a neat piece of chemistry.

Effetre 420: Coral - Firecracker

Effetre 420 Coral - Firecracker variant.

Maybe someday I will understand why this colour - 420 - Coral - comes out different every time.

I am pleased to see that the sellers are giving it a subname - Firecracker - essentially labeling it as a batch. Because it's deeply annoying to fall in love with a colour, and then not be able to re-order it because - well - there is no way to talk about it. I mean, this is why we have Latin names for plants and things - so we can be certain we are talking about the same thing.

I doubt that this is THAT specific - but it's a step in the right direction. So if an orangey variation of coral that is super streaky and has almost an oriental carpet vibe to it is your cuppa tea - ask for Effetre 420 Coral - Firecracker. 

All four of the beads shown here are self-coloured - no other glass used. So you can see - it is really streaky.

Conversely, if you want a plain, even colour - this is not your glass. ;-)

Goldstone stringer

 Goldstone stringer.

Here's the case for making your own, versus buying it premade.

Encasing with a colour.

These beads are a base of red, with goldstone stringer handmade with transparent red and clear stripes.

What a handsome effect, yes?

Bead Recipe: Tidal Pools

I've always wanted to write a "Bead of the Month" column, but the reality is, I just couldn't jam another commitment into my schedule!

However, if I were to write a "Bead of the Month" column - this might be one of them.

I call this design "Tidal Pools" for the sandy texture and the rich blue pools.

Skill Level: Intrepid Beginner to Intermediate. The shape is unimportant, and can be asymmetrical and organic - good for beginners struggling with shape control.

Prerequisite: Know what a reduction flame is. Know how to make a twistie.




You will need

Glass Rods:
Effetre Light Ivory

Effetre Light Dark Sky Blue
Clear

Additional Supplies:
Goldstone frit, fairly small/fine
Silver foil
Some Twisties containing High Silver colours

Tools:
Your favorite marver
Pair of mashers
Plus all the usual equipment to make beads (Mandrels, torch, kiln, glasses). I am presuming you already know how to make beads and know how to make them safely.

 I usually have left over twisties laying around - but if you don't and need to make some fresh - make some using high silver colours, such as Double Helix and TAG. You might alternate stripes of ivory and Terra, or Helios or Clio or Aura. (Avoid the black looking rods - or not, but the look will be quite different.)

Before turning on your torch, tear or cut your silver foil sheet in half or thirds. 

Start by making a base bead in ivory, make it longish, anywhere from 1 - 2 inches, as per your preferences and ability.

Build it up and shape it into a rough oval, footballish shape. The shape isn't too important to the bead, and you can go for an organic shape that will suit this better than an example of perfect Euclidean geometry.

Let it cool and stiffen a little, and apply silver foil to the right half of the bead. (Reverse for left handed flame workers.) Burnish it onto the glass (rub with the marver.)

Apply the flame to the foil and melt it in. While it is still hot and glowing, roll the side you just applied foil to in the gold stone frit. It's not necessary to apply it all the way up to the very edge of where the foil was - leave a buffer zone.

Apply your twistie to the edge, more or less, between the foiled and unfoiled half. Again, this doesn't need to be precise.

Melt the twistie in.

Add two or three large dots of the Light Dark sky blue, one on the unfoiled end of the bead, next to the twistie, and the other on the other side of the twistie, on the opposite side of the bead.

Melt these in partially - flattening them with a marver, but leaving them still raised.

Apply a large dollop of clear directly onto the Light Sky Blue, and marver to the edge of the dot. Then continue to melt them in.

Once the dots are melted in, get the bead evenly heated and ready to mash. If a nice piece of pattern has developed that you can see, you may wish to feature this on the front of the bead, but as a general rule, choose to mash so that the Light Sky Blue dots come out on the sides, not smack in the middle of the front and back.

Mash the bead, tweak the shape if necessary, and firepolish out the chill marks. Turn the flame down to a reducing flame and reduce to bring up the metallics in the twistie. Kiln and anneal as usual.

Notes.

The layer of clear is what keeps the Light Dark Sky Blue bright - without it, it will reduce and react.

Correction: Dark Sky Blue.

The clear makes the blue look lighter, hence my memory error. Light Sky Blue comes out too light.

I'm not dead.

I know, I'm sorry - I went from regular posts to - Kablooie. Nothing. Sorry about that.

I've been occupied the last month with a lot of dog stuff, and just falling down exhausted at the end of the day. And there's another week of it to come too.

Hopefully - then I can resume some of the backlog.

I've barely been on the torch - I feel rusty when I sit down. How the heck does this work again?

Anyway - I did get in a few hours the other night. This flame headed dude emerged at the end of the evening.

Cheers all!

Ruben's Tube - Visualize this ...

Ok - this isn't glass - but - damn - this is cool. It IS fire - so it's close enough. This is a method of visualizing sounds using flames. Sort of a fire-based oscilloscope.





Anybody want to build one with 2500 old Minor Burners? ;-)

Drilling Glass

Here is an excellent, short video about drilling glass. It is specific to "sea glass" - but the principle is the same. If you have been experimenting with fusing, or off mandrel work, and would like to drill a hole - this is how.

The phrase "let the drill do the drilling" is really important - let the drill do the work, instead of leaning on it and trying to force the drill through.

You could make your own "sea glass" by melting up chunks of scrap glass, and then annealing them, and then etching, sandblasting, or tumbling them. There is an entire community of people out there who would consider that statement to be blasphemy,  but "sea glass" is broken glass bottles tumbled in salt water and sand. Mostly beer and wine bottles, fallen off boats. Hence the mostly clear, brown and green. Some blue - vodka, and the occasional red piece, a broken port running light.

Prince Rupert's Drops again.

I've talked about Prince Rupert's Drops before, but it's just soooo cool - here they are again investigated by Smarter Every Day.








Interestingly - he gets a speed of 1.03 miles per second which is 3708 miles per hour, vs CMOG which gets a speed of about 4,200 miles per hour.

Still ridiculously fast. 

CiM 509 Poseidon Revisited

Poseidon, or Poseidan, as I keep misspelling it, so if I throw that in there, I'll find it next time I search - anyway - CiM Poseidon is a translucent sky blue that I reviewed a while back. It is a lovely colour, and I'm not clear why I didn't buy a bunch of it then. Probably something to do with having enough glass to start a small store, but that's another story.

I had heard that there seemed to be a colour difference between the old batch of Poseidon and the new, so armed with a rod of the old and a rod of the new, I sat down to test this out. Visually - the rods seem pretty similar, the older rod "O" on the top (fatter rod) and the newer on the bottom - "N." Held up to the light - the older rod is denser, but doh, it's thicker.

But when worked up into a bead - the older rod, on the left, actually does come out slightly more opaque.

 However, this might just be a function of heating and cooling, as all three of these below were made with the old batch, and match the right bead above.

From the left, base of Poseidon with ivory dots, and two self-coloured beads.

So - in conclusion - pretty colour - and the old and the new are functionally the same (as to be expected from CiM.) Slight variations probably come from technique. That's why we call it art. ;-)

Torture Test

Here, I was doing some torture testing - pushing the envelope with the Uroboros clear.

This is a base of that purple maybe-Lauscha, rolled in palladium leaf, encased in Riley Dichro Green/Magenta, and encased in Uroboros clear. Mashed, impressed, a couple of lines of intense black laid down, decided I didn't like them and pulled them off, poked, prodded, smeared, crunched, pulled, twisted, and just generally abused.

 While the bead looks like something that you find floating in the ocean after a big storm, a jellyfish in a sweater maybe, but the glass came through with flying colours. I'm impressed. That's a real world application for the Uroboros clear.

Riley Designs Dichro: Aurora - Green/Magenta Blue

I usually just plunge into the dichro and use it, and forget to mark what I was using, so I don't often review dichro.

This is from Riley Designs, it is a CBS coating (the dichro part) and a significant part of the Riley dichro line is coated onto Uroboros clear, for it's clarity. You have to admit, coating dichro onto Effetre scummy clear just seems like a bad idea.

This is a double layer of the dichro, and encased in Uroboros clear. It's very hard to get a clear dichro bead in focus properly - I should have done a manual focus - because - dichro is designed to reflect light, and does it in such a way that it makes it hard for the autofocus to figure out where it is.

Notice you can see the green and the magenta from it's name. Also some blue, gold and yellow, because dichro just doesn't stop at a few colours! (I should have shot the glass before using it. Dichro doesn't hang around long in my studio.)

Here we have a core of some lovely deep purple that I am completely uncertain as to the provenance of, but it might have been a Lauscha glass, with a layer of dichro, and encased in Uroboros clear.  

How freaking yummy is that? Never met a dichro I didn't like.

CiM 210 Sunset

Another orange from CiM - not too far in hue from Orange Crush, but it is an true opaque, and thereby doesn't have the same luminous quality to it.












Here we have two self-coloured beads - not much going on in streakiness. Nice, solid orange.

 And here we have, from the left, base of Sunset, Ivory dots, and on the right, base of sunset, turquoise dots. No significant reaction between the ivory and the orange, and the turquoise - that has developed a heavy, dull, leaden look to it - which sometimes happens with ivory. That should come off with soaking in CLR.

Nice orange. I like the Orange Crush better, but I like the transparency factor. But sometimes, you need an opaque!