"Process" vessel, Stage 2

Here is the vessel post-PMC. You can see the silver around the neck and coming up from the bottom. Since the glass had a matte texture to it, not quite like sandblasting but still rough, I decided to try the tinting method we learned in class on it as well. The results are mixed. They'd be much better, no doubt, with real sandblasting. But it's very cool that the silver worked. It had a matte texture, too, so I tried tinting it green, and it took a little.

A problem I found was that the crack I felt before was the tip of the vessel breaking off, and I didn't notice it while the vessel was in the flame and I could have done something about it. So the tip isn't as nice as it could be, and I had to grind it a bit to make it less dangerous, so some silver was lost off the bottom too.

This was a really cool experiment! Thanks, Tink!

If you look at my boutique's lampwork selection now, you may notice that it's mighty thin. That's because a couple of friends bought a whole bunch of beads from me. I'll post more as saleable ones become available!

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Photo of first Tink vessel, stage 1

The vessel came out of the kiln mostly intact, except for a crack in the mouth. This gave me all the more incentive to try other techniques I learned in her class on it: 1) adding PMC to it, and 2) reintroducing it to the flame and trying to heal the crack.

This vessel is about process, not product, so yes, it's not exactly pretty, but that's okay! (I keep telling myself that!) The dichro is an attempt to add interest to what would otherwise be a strange, Michelin Tire Guy-type vessel.

First I added PMC paste to the vessel and let it dry. Then I put it in the kiln, still on the mandrel, and let it warm up to standard Moretti annealing temperature (940 degrees F on my kiln). When it was hot, I reintroduced it to the flame, and it survived all of this (I think). I did feel one crack as it was heating, but I think that was a piece of dichro falling off.

I then tried healing the crack. This was more challenging; first the vessel became too hot and started losing its shape, then it fell right off the mandrel. I don't have hot fingers yet, so I grabbed it with pliers and tried to heal the crack that way while keep the rest of it warm. The crack mostly closed up, but when I tried to drop the vessel in the kiln, I had to shake it off the pliers because it was getting stuck. We'll see if it survives after it's annealed.

I'm actually proud of the fact that I even made this baby at all, and that so many things that could have gone wrong, like blowing it right off the mandrel, didn't happen!

Here is a photo of this PROCESS vessel pre-PMC and healing. Ah well, if nothing else, it might help to raise appreciation for the professionalism of Tink's vessels!

More successful (?) blown vessel

I had another go at making a vessel tonight, after my exploding failure the other night. This time I started with a fresh tank of gas and used white glass (very soft) with my Hothead. I used too much glass, and the vessel got to be too large and ended up lumpy due to the low heat of the torch, but it's a vast improvement over no vessel. As my chum Tony would say, "That vessel is a million times better than the vessel that didn't get made!" Though I decorated it, it seemed like adding handles would be pushing it, so it's sans handles.

Photos to come if it doesn't shatter in the kiln.

New Orleans Photos

This is bead related only in the extreme stretch that New Orleans loves beads. I've been spending the last week down here, and I've compiled a collection of photos about the recovery efforts here. If you'd like to see and read it, visit my photo blog.

Website updated

I've just added a few new things to the boutique. There are a couple of beads, as well as two original art pieces I made a little while ago. It's great to have them online at last!

Hollow Bead Photo

Here is the photo of this bead.

Bead photo and hollow update

The hollow bead came out of the kiln tonight. The bubble isn't as large or well-formed as I'd thought - it's only about half the diameter of the bead, and its center is offset from the center of the bead. However, the bead itself is nice and round, with fine puckers, and the dichro, Tink dust and dot accents are sweet. Photos will be posted... sometime.

In the meantime, here is a photo of the floral that came togetherr a few weeks ago. It has nice natural shadings of pink and blue in the petals due to using different layers of clear on the white. I like this sweet bead!

Photo of Tink vessel

Be jealous. Be very, very jealous! Here it is, with electroformed patinated copper forming the turquoise-colored design.



To get your own fabulous vessel, visit Black Swamp Glassworks.

Hollow beads, baybee! Yeah!

Forgive me that momentary Austin Powers-esque lapse, but I never thought I'd see the day when I'd actually make a hollow bead, and on a Hothead torch, no less! It's even kinda pretty. It's finishing its annealing cycle (last stage) now.

Okay, so it's the only bead I successfully made today, but it's still something. My other attempt - extremely ambitious - was to try a vessel on a hollow mandrel. It was actually going okay, despite all the cracking, but the flame was just too cool. Even with the heating pad, I really should have changed out the MAPP tank after the hollow bead. So as I was nearing the end, half of the hollow bead just... fell off. No rescuing that one. Plus it was getting harder and harder to melt the clear glass.

As business paperwork has been calling and the tax deadline nears, there was no more time at the torch for me today. I do appreciate the nice tools I picked up at Tin Alley and from Black Swamp Glassworks, though. They make a big difference.

And another piece of big news: I actually ordered a new torch, a Minor! Yay! Just have to spend several hundred more dollars to complete the setup, LOL, but at least it's on its way.

A photo of the hollow bead will be posted when possible.

Tink class in Connecticut

Today was fantastic. I attended a class at Tin Alley Art Glass studio in Connecticut. The class was run by Tink, and it was a download of lots of really cool techniques she had to offer.

Some of the things we learned were:

• Hollow beadmaking
• Hollow bead with a bead inside
• Shards
• Wings on a blown vessel
• How to make an implosion bead with soft glass
• Tink dots and trails
• Transfer a black and white image to glass
• Add PMC to glass
• Reheat a bead and work with it again
• Making twisties
• Painting beads with oil paints
and more...

It was not a good day for Alice's bead release, so the one project I tried, a hollow bead, broke the release and ended up in water. I don't have any take-homes, therefore, except the exceptional knowledge I gained - and that's well worth it!

We ganged up on Tink and took away her water, because she kept dunking really cool beads she'd made. Terrible! I rescued a lovely seashell-type glass thing, and it's still intact; I will try to anneal it. We'll see if it survives. (Update: When I arrived home, the outside was intact, but the inside was very cracked. I am trying to see if it will "heal" in the kiln now.)

Between Tink and John, and the studio, I was able to supplement my tool supply nicely. I now have several hollow mandrels, including one to be dedicated to shard-making, a brass shaper, Kevlar gloves, more mandrels (actually straight ones!), decent bead release, a cool mini dental tool, and Tink dust.

And my present to myself: a GORGEOUS Tink vessel with electroformed copper on it. She was selling all the vessels at the class at her former website price; they are going up, and this one would have been more because of the electroforming, but she didn't want John to have to remember different prices. I knew I'd regret it if I didn't buy it, and I'm very glad I did now.

Those who took the class were a lovely group of women. Three others were connected with me in interesting ways. When we were doing introductions, Tink mentioned that I had been on TV (the last thing on my mind), and one woman cried, "Oh, that's why you look familiar!" She told me later that my episode was the first That's Clever episode she had ever watched. What a coincidence. And the woman next to me had seen that episode too. This is the first time anyone I'd met in person had recognized me in that way. It was cute.

It also came out later that the woman across from me had participated in a bulk buy I had run some time ago. So the wires cross in the lampwork community...

It's been on my mind for a while to upgrade my lampworking setup. My whole journey into lampworking has been pretty organic, not forced, and this seems to be happening that way too. It took me about a year and a half to collect the necessary items to get started as opportunities presented themselves. Now other parts are appearing: a decent compressor, information about torches, gas, etc.

One thing I did learn was that going from a Hothead to a Mini CC was not easy. In fact, I don't really love that torch. Having worked on a Minor in Jerusalem, I am much more likely to go in that direction when upgrading to a "real" torch.

It's so difficult to do a hollow bead, or an imploded bead, on a Hothead, because both techniques require such a directed flame. And as John said, the Hothead is more like a glory hole: it's all heat, or no heat. So if I really want to use these techniques, I should seriously move toward a better setup.

My funds are drained at the moment, though, because I've just had to replace my laptop. It fell and broke in December, and my new Macbook Pro just arrived last Thursday. It's taking a little setup time, but I'm getting up to speed now, and it's really nice working on the "latest and greatest" hardware! This means, though, that funds for more than the necessities are extremely scarce for a while.

And another piece of equipment that seems to be a must-have after the class: a sandblaster! There is SO MUCH that can be done with this piece of equipment.

Since it was April 1, they said, we got goody bags. I don't know if they do this for all their classes, but we received cute Tink bead tote bags with a bunch of cool things in them, including glass to make the bead pens that got demoed, but which we didn't get to try to make. It was really fun opening them up and finding all the "presents." I can hardly wait to play, though I will have to do so until after taxes are finished!

Second try at yesterday's entry

Yesterday, I was a very silly person, because I rebooted my laptop before uploading my most recent blog entry that I'd spent a while writing. So here's a recap:

Although my blog has been quiet, all has not been dead on the lampwork front. In February, I invited a terrific student and his mother, who is also an artist, to my studio to see the process of lampwork. I made one bead (time was very short), and the mom made a bead with pretty colors but very sharp edges.

The next week at school, I brought the beads that we'd made to school and gave the one I'd made to the boy as a gift. He gave them to his mom, who when she saw me, held up the bead I'd made and joked, "I think you need to learn from me how to make a bead, to improve your technique." Israelis and their sense of humor!

The only other time since then that I've been on the torch was last weekend, when what I'd learned at the Jerusalem Gathering last summer finally gelled, and I made a better floral bead than ever before. I have photos of this and other jewelry pieces all ready to be cropped and put on my site, but I simply have not had the time to do so, because I was finishing the first edits of my novel, which is now being critiqued. Posting the pieces will happen soon!

To look forward to (terrible grammar, I know): Tink's class tomorrow in Connecticut. A recap will follow.