A blog dedicated to the creativity and the challenges of making and designing with handmade art glass (lampwork) beads.
About This Blog
This blog reflects the thoughts, passions and struggles of a glass bead artist whose day job is manufacturing food safe rubber stamps. I share the joys and challenges of making lampwork glass beads and rubber stamping. ALL images here are copyrighted unless otherwise stated and may not be used without permission!Contact Holly
Several amazing sales venues have popped up on Facebook expressly for artisan lampwork! I always share my current sales on my fan page there. But you can usually find me on any of the following groups:
Your
Beadmaker has a case of the BLAHS! I don't want to make beads because
I'm feeling uninspired. I don't want to clean beads I've made b/c my
dremel is midway on another project. I don't want to photograph cleaned
beads b/c it's hot. I don't want to list b/c no one seems to be
shopping... sigh #FallDoldrums
So what do you do when you need inspiration??? No, really, I want to know!! This is the hardest thing for me. I see people make cute little sets... over and over and over... and pass the bullets please! I was never cut out to be a "factory." I knew this with the rubber stamp biz.
Back when rubber stamping was really huge and there were actual rubber stamp stores, several of the more successful manufacturers offered a "card of the month" program. While this was a nice way to guarantee wholesale order every month....it also involved creating a handmade card for every store that subscribed to the program! And the most had 200 -250 stores subscribed to this plan! I knew two of the artists who made these cards every month, Jane Beard, (who drew the Museum of Modern Rubber line that I press) and the late, great Georgia Cerone. Both loved the repetition of the work and having to come up with new designs for next month. I would just die if I had to do that!
And so it goes with beads. I have to have something new going on to keep my brain happy and with the doldrums... how do you just light the torch of inspiration???
I decided to explore some color sites. I wrote down the color combos that appealed to me and before I knew it... the bead ideas were flowing. I only got a couple of beads made...but that's a start. And sometimes, that's all it takes!
So... what do YOU do when you need inspiration????
The colors of spring 2013 according to the color people at Pantone are:
Emerald, Dusk Blue, Grayed Jade, Tender Shoots, Lemon Zest, African Violet, Linen, Monaco Blue, Poppy Red and Nectarine. This set is my interpretation in glass lampwork beads.
Ask any glass work and they will give you a litany of reasons behind what makes their favorite colors their must haves. To the naked eye, black is black, right??? Not to a glass worker. I myself don't venture into the boutique glasses too much... I don't sell enough to justify the costs but I still know the difference between black, metallic black and intense black.
I must say, I never really gave much thought to ivory... Light or dark. In 104, I found it much more moody than my beloved Bullseye. I can rock silvered ivory in Bullseye glass - but give me 104 and I will make caca!
So I've always used Vetrofond and Effetre interchangeably... One's on sale? Great! I'll take it... I never really cared which I used and rarely labeled it. I only started labeling it after buying Kim Neely's tuts on silver glass.
But recently, in Kim Affleck's class, she discussed the color reactions of different glasses on Vetrofond vs. Effetre. I won't go into her secrets but I will tell you the same two color were used to decorate both these beads. And...those two colors came from the same rods even (so no variation in batches). The ONLY difference is the base of the green one is Effetre and the blue is Vetrofond. Two different ivories and two VERY different beads.
This photo doesn't do them justice... the one on the left is olive green!!!
Needless to say every glass dealer in this country seems to be on some kind of Vetrofond diet! You can't get the stuff! And... OF COURSE, I like the blue better!
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Also there's still time to bid on the Fire Divas Beads of Courage Auction closing today. If you don't want to bid, make a donation to this wonderful charity and go comment on this Diva's blog post to be eligible for one of three great prizes!
There are just certain color that speak to my soul. Often I don't set out to make such a bead and open the kiln door and my jaw drops. This set did that for me:
The silvery turquoise and the moody earthy browns...oh! I love it so much, I made one for me! I rarely do that!
I've always loved the way silver reacts with certain glasses but really, I love the reaction the glass gets out of ME just as much. It's so awesome to be amazed by something YOU made!
What colors make your heart sing???
----I'm "hoping" to have some new eye beads to show you tomorrow!----
I so wish I were one of those capable of thinking ahead. I'm just starting to think about summer. Heck it was so chilly here in Los Angeles last night that, for the first time in 11 summers, it was too COLD to sit in the pool and watch fireworks! Is it any wonder I'm confused?
But no, as a beadmaker, I need to be making fall and winter colors NOW for jewelry designers to be able to make jewelry and still sell it in time for the season. So I'm trying to shift my thoughts. As always some color helps!
This is the color chart for fall by Fire Mountain Gems. I will be printing this out and hanging it by my torch for inspiration.
Fall...harumph! OK, I'll try! But I am NOT making snowmen in August!
Oh my! Today we'll explore some common decorating terms. The decoration on the surface of glass beads is often made with thin, hand-pulled pieces of glass called stringer. But stringer can get... complicated!
But let's start with the simple. Basic stringer is one color. It's is a simple a single rod, heated in the flame and pulled to a smaller size:To make the icing decorations on this toffee bar candy bead, I pulled brown stringer from the same rod as the base bead. Then we move into the slightly more complicated "cased cane." Once layers of glass are involved, we start calling it cane. Casing means another layer of glass is coating an inner layer. The inside is encased in more glass. This is a great way to work with a fussy color that reacts (see yesterday's post) to other colors, such as transparent pink (a/k/a/ rubino di oro or gold rose). Casing pink in clear prevents it from reacting and getting all gray and ugly while still allowing it to be pink.
Cased cane is also a fabulous way to pull a custom color! If you understand anything about color i.e. Yellow + Blue = Green, you never run out of color! By taking a yellow rod and coating it with blue transparent, you'll end up with a really pretty green. OR like below, I like my pinks a little orange. This cane is coral+rubino+clear.
Next comes the more elaborate vine cane. This is cane that starts with a base color, gets striped with thin stringers of a darker or lighter color and then is encased. Here are some examples of vine and leaf cane from my table: Note the stripes above. Many lampworkers cut into the base rod to apply those stripes but I like mine really even and use a graphite shaping block from Weaver Industries: The hot base rod is placed in the mold which generates a perfectly scored rod. Stringer is added to the scores and the whole thing is encased and pulled thin. There are examples of rose cane, leaf cane and vine cane throughout this bead:
Next comes the much more complicated twistie. Twisties are fussy and it's taken me ages to realize why! Some glasses are "soupy" - they melt faster. Soupy glasses tend to take over the twist! White is the soupiest glass of all. To compensate, I use three - five times as much of the non-white color to keep the white in balance! The other issue is getting a really even pull. Here are a few twisities:
And since I rarely use them, I'm going to use an example from one of the Fire Divas who uses twisties frequently, Theresa of TeaseBeads. Check out this focal:
Even more complicated is the wig wag cane or V-rod. These are twisties that are pulled back and forth to create unusal twists and turns in the rod. Sarah Hornik pulls them by hand. These were pulled with the aid of a kiln, making it much easier to get them even. The final type of cane I'll show you is ribbon cane. This is formed from a paddle of glass, striped with stringer and care is taken to keep it FLAT in pulling. These make fabulous textured scarves for snowmen or belts. I've even made ribbons flowing off Christmas ornaments. So there you have it... a tour into the world of stringers and canes. I hope you'll take what you've learned and look at some beads a little more closely. Take a moment to realize how much artistry goes into each bead. Does the bead maker use "flat color" - one color stringer - or is she trying to create a work of art by layering color? Does she give thought to the basic art principles of highlights, lowlights and midtones? If she uses single colors, does she do amazing things with it?
There's much to consider when buying lampwork. Each bead is a reflection of the hand of the artist.
is....Yellow??? Ick! I am SO not a yellow fan...maybe because it makes my ruddy Irish skin look like warm death. My mother, with her American Indian / Black Irish coloring - skin that tans beautifully in a heartbeat, jet black hair and dark, mysterious eyes - looks stunning in yellow. So I guess it is somebody's color.
The Color Association of the United States declared Yellow the color of the year and cites influences such as "Slumdog Millionaire" and the fact that hope is associated with the color. And, this country certainly needs a little hope!
I am happy that the shade of yellow selected by Pantone is a bit more goldenrod than a true pale yellow. Let's take another look at the colors for the coming Fall / Winter Season...Beadmakers, are your stores stocked?? Here's a few yellow selections from my 1000 Markets and Etsy shops:
Color that works together is a hard thing for any new designer to grasp. That one of the reason's I find this year's Art Bead Scene contest so inspiring. By taking color hints from master painters, you have your colors chosen for you.
But choosing colors doesn't have to be difficult. There are a number of websites that let you play with color choices and combos. And Fire Mountain Gems has teamed up with Pantone to forecast jewelry colors for upcoming seasons. They do this months in advance for upcoming seasons.
The swatch above represents the "it" colors for Spring and Summer. The swatch below are the color predictions for fall.
As a beadmaker, I'm always thinking about color and new combinations. I often print up the swatches and keep them by my torch for inspiration.
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