Lampwork: week 17-18

[June 14-27]

The dragonscale beads were also done in week 17.

First hummingbirds

Hummingbirds. I did these after Sabine mentioned Roger Child’s hummingbird tutorial on YouTube. I made the hole going the wrong way by accident the first time… This is something that I had to force myself not to do for the other ones. It just felt more natural for the body to be that way round! They are petrol green with dark lavender wings, which has photographed as blue under my halogen bulb (dark lavender’s a colour shift glass).

More hummingbirds

Some more. One has a Reichenbach mystic grey-blue body and pale blue wings, another is mystic pink with pink lady wings, and the third is MCD with ocean wings.

Iris blue on ivory

These are Reichenbach iris blue on ivory. See how the design on the lentil has nowhere near as much of a reaction line? I think this has a lot to do with pressing and only the surface of the glass being heated up as much after I added the blue. It wasn’t hot enough to sink in so much, so it didn’t produce as much of a line. The rounds were heated fully molten while I melted the dots in and gravity swirled them a very little. They’re reduced to get the metallic effect.

Lace and yellow opalino

On the right are lace beads, made by making a base of anise white, adding little bits of CiM Hades stringer and superheating it so it webs. Love the effect. On the left are yellow opalino beads. The bicone has robin’s egg blue frit on it. The rounds developed that reddish colour in the kiln, which confused me a lot! I am assuming they reduced slightly in there, but only on one side.

Wut?

I have christened these “Wut?!” beads. They are fugly. They’re dragonscale-based. The first is an ivory base, SIS dots, then Reichenbach silver brown dots that were melted in, reduced and dots of clear were added on top that were then partly flattened. The second is similar but has a CiM olive base, SIS dots and EDP striped pink dots before doing the silver brown and clear as above. Lots of devit from the striped pink and a big blobby mess!

Pinks

Mystic pink hollow with purpur frit. Mystic pink lentil with hades webbing: this behaved slightly oddly, didn’t web well and formed some whitish lines as well. Devit? Then a dark lavender lentil with hades webbing (I adjusted the photo so it appears the normal colour rather than blue).

In week 18 I also made beads for birthday necklaces for two of my friends – to be seen in my next post! Plus a number of tiny little spacers in pinks, blues, and greens.