Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Owls with shards

I was gifted some beautiful looking shards and finally made some owls using them. Shards are made by winding molten glass around the end of a tube in a rough bowl shape then blowing through the tube so that it forms a thinned bulb shape. When solidified you smash the bulb, producing 'shards' of glass. These shards have some silvered ivory in the mix which provides a lovely organic effect. Here's a photo with the shards before they're applied, they are very thin, fragile and razor sharp!

Here are the owls finished. I used a white base. Verdict? I like. The last owl has some frit of silver glass Terranova on his back, which has turned the shard a deeper golden-brown hue.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Uber Bots!!


Here are four robots in the newest style. They are made with Triton, a glass from Double Helix that pops out the wonderful lustre in a 'reduction' flame.
I'm so pleased that I am able to replicate the robotic style that was achieved in the first of this new line.

Just before I go to sleep I think about beads, as much as I love the process of creation, wouldn't it be great if the things visualized in your mind could be made real in an instant? Even if it was an image transfer so that you could remember the colours and pattern and design. I have a visual diary etc but often the memory from that twilight mind state evaporates in the real light. Also, lugging around 100 coloured pencils just so you can get the right colour is a little unwieldy.
One idea I had was to get a specialized tablet (laptop) that can deal with graphics programmes and is in a good portable size. They are a bit slow in coming out with it. I know they're out there but so far they're fairly primitive. Unless YOU know of one?