Flame November 2014
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Torchlight on …
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Tutorial from
- free to GBUK members!
Page 7 Members’ beads from last month’s challenge:
Page 8-9 Colour testing …. white glass… by
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No pressure, no prizes, just fun! Make a bead, set of beads, focal, mixed media, on or off mandrel piece using the theme of or ‘ (wire, brass frit, silver mesh, etc. - what do you put in your beads?)
Post your photos on www.frit-happens.co.uk and/or www.craftpimp.co.uk and/or our Facebook page by All members' photos will be included in the December issue of the GBUK
Sue Webb I first became aware of lampwork beads about 12 years ago when I was doing a jewellery stringing course and was drawn to the pretty imported Chinese and Indian beads. I was curious as to how these were made and began to do a little research. At this stage I had no idea how beads got their hole or became round. I live in Bristol, which is a very creative city, with frequent art trails and on one of these I managed to track down one lampworker - Rowan Van De Holt. She is a very talented glass sculpture artist but I went to her for a couple of one to one lessons on bead making and was immediately captivated by that flame and hot glass and I knew I had struck upon something rather special.
I have a low boredom threshold and like quick results, I like bright colours and tactile surfaces. I had had my fill of silversmithing, wood turning, paper making and stained glass and a few others; it was time for something new and totally absorbing and lampwork ticked those boxes. So started the longest obsession for me - so far....
We converted a tumble down garage into a workshop and I invested in the kit. Rowan gave me a good piece of advice- to buy the best torch you can afford, so I missed out the hot head and jumped straight to the Nortel Minor. I then worked my way through Cindy Jenkins and Corina Tettinger’s books until I had a few techniques under my belt.
My style took a while to develop and copied a lot to begin with, but did put a little snake bead on the clasp of the necklaces I was making. This seemed to be a popular addition, as did the name that I gave each one this was also was a good way of remembering what the necklace looked like if customers contacted me. Funnily enough the snake, or later the bee bead, on the necklaces were my favourites. I was then asked by a friend to make a Welsh dragon and enjoyed the challenge. So the menagerie began to expand and less and less beads get made unless they have eyes on them.
For 2 years I have had a lovely job with Trollbeads as a demonstrator at events in jewellery shops around the country; I make troll beads for the lovely customers who often have enormous collections of beads and to have one made especially for them is very exciting. We have three demonstrators now, as I could not be in two places at once, and Amanda Muddimer (Mango Beads) and Julie Fountain (Lush Lampwork) have recently joined the team.
I also teach beadmaking at ‘Creative Glass Guild’ in Bristol and also a specific course called Beadimals to show how to make the animal beads. I took a year-long course there last year, in many aspects of glass, and have got back into stained glass (where did I put my tools I last used 20 years ago?). New to me was glass fusing and I have enjoyed using my knowledge of lampwork to incorporate inclusions such as stringers, twisties and murrini into the fused glass. This is now something I teach at Creative Glass Guild too.
www.sue-webb.co.uk
Free tutorial ‌
for GBUK members
Joy has kindly offered this tutorial free of charge to GBUK members. To access this, please log in to the members area of the GBUK website. www.gbuk.org This tutorial is also available from Joy’s webshop on Etsy:
‘Bright beads’
‘Aventurine ‘
Colour testing
by
Ilsa Fatt
White glass is a bit like functional underwear. Not glamorous, but you just want it to discreetly do its job and not unexpectedly embarrass you.
white
Effetre white does the job perfectly. It's reliable and pretty non-reactive, except with silver, which turns it yellowish. (Oh no, I really shouldn't have used that underwear analogy!)
This stuff is a mystery to me, the mystery being why anyone would knowingly buy it, and why Effetre continues to manufacture it. The main problem with anice is that it's unbelievably shocky. I usually find that I've lost half the rod in explosive fragments before I've even started working with it. The colour itself is ok, though slightly less dense than regular Effetre white, meaning that it tends to disappear if used as a thin stringer. I've got quite a lot of anice that I got once when Tuffnells had run out of regular white, but there's no way I'd ever buy it again. Ever.
Marshmallow is a semitranslucent white. It has a lovely ethereal quality, and I can imagine it would look gorgeous in a goddess bead, giving an illusion of marble. It's too translucent to work as a separator colour under another transparent, let alone as a melted-in stringer decoration.
Peace is a denser white than regular Effetre. In fact it's a real Daz bright white. This means it's great for things like filigrano or very fine stringers. It does have its issues, though. One is that it will blacken if exposed too quickly to a hot flame or one with too much propane in it. It can devitrify if repeatedly heated and cooled. It is also quite reactive, which can be interesting if you like that sort of thing. For an analysis of how it reacts with an assortment of other colours, here's a link to Melanie Graham's Mindmelt blog spot: http://melaniegraham.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Peace
All beads are on a base of Effetre Petrol. In decreasing order of density: 1. CIM Peace 2. Effetre White 3. Effectre soft white 4. CIM Marshmallow
The annual competition will come round faster than you think so we want to give you plenty of notice. Entries need to be in by 28th February 2015 - details of where to send them will be published later. You need to be a paid-up member on 28th February 2015 to enter any category other than Jewellery. The themes this year are:
So get your thinking caps on!
category
– any form of entry is valid. Newcomers may enter this enter any/all of the main categories. bead – on mandrel, single bead. – multiple beads, on mandrel. – on mandrel.
– incorporates anything else not included above e.g. cold working, dioramas, off-mandrel. – one entry per person, or collaboration group, which must include lampwork beads. This is a good one to suggest to your customers - they can enter the competition using your beads as you do not have to be a member of GBUK to enter the jewellery category.
Do you have a tutorial or article you would like to see in Contact secretary@gbuk.org.
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