April Showers!

My May Blog post has arrived early. The grizzley weather in the UK and a day off mean that I have time to sit down and tell you my news.  

First things first... I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has bought from me during April, I had a crazy month and it was so exciting to feel that people where liking what I am creating and are not being detered in buying by all the doom and gloom that our various ecomonies are heaping on us.  A few colourful beads is what everyone needs to cheer themselves up and I have been buying some too!!

So what news..........

Prior to my trip to the US earlier in the year I made myself a lovely big necklace with big chunky beads in lots of lovely colour that all measured in the region of 35mm in diameter (3.5cm) so it made a real statement. 

 I was asked so many times if it was for sale that I sat down when I got home and started making similar beads to sell and the option of buying a bespoke one in colours of your choice.  My first commission one was black and white which was a hard one for me....I love colour and most of my work is full of colour so this pushed me to the limit, but I really enjoyed it as I had to think much more about pattern than I sometimes do with colour and I was really pleased with the result.

 

I then had a customer who wished to make her own up so she bought beads over the course of a week as I uploaded them.  I found this really interesting as some I would have chosen for a bespoke random colour necklace but some I would not have so it showed me an entirely different combination of beads to my own.  These beads and the ball chain necklace are going to be a permanant fixture in my Etsy shop as they are proving really popular.  I am going to endeavour to upload a few a day which means that there will be ongoing choice for everyone.

 I have always loved creating big mandala style glass wheels and have up untill recently always tried to stick with colours that don't react against each other or bleed or web as I felt that comprimised the design.

I have tried experimenting with colours that actually react together and can cause some interesting effects and these new wheels have also proved very popular......

I love the way some glasses react creating lines that almost look like they have been painted or drawn onto the bead and the slight smudgy effect which also looks like it has been painted on rather than being created in the flame.

I also had a delivery of cupcake murrine.  A Facebook friend of mine had a beautiful Airedale Terrier who sadly passed away after a battle with illness.  At the end of her life the only thing that she could be tempted to eat was cupcakes so when I saw that Lori Peterson had created some cupcake murrine I bought some straight away and made my friend a 5mm pandora style bead to have on her bracelet as a reminder of Ruby.  

 

I had a few murrines left over so decided to do something abit mad with it and this big P!nk Sputn!ck was born!!

So there we are I have written far more than I usually would...I hope you are still with me?  So onto Milly my Lakeland.....she has to feature in my blog each month it has become abit of a tradition.

So we have had the UK Flame Off in April organised by Tuffnell Glass It is a great place to meet other flameworkers, buy lots of glass and watch some international and uk artists demonstrate their skills.  One of those artist was Claudia Trimbur Pagel who makes the most lovely beads with meticulous stringer work (fine lines of glass) and she makes great DOGS!!  I had to have one and this one just reminded my so much of my Milly!

 I think it is the ears!!

Thank you for reading my blog and Happy Melting to all  you Flameworkers out there :0)

Murrini Madness

So another week has shot by and the house is still not fully unpacked and the flooring is still not down in the studio but this hasn't stopped me from lighting the torch!  I have been experimenting with Murrine this week.

I did a course in October with Astrid Reidel  which I mentioned in last weeks blog and made Murrini for the first time. I have not had a chance to experiment with them so this was the week and I am hooked!

So what is Murrine?  Well Wikipedia has given me this explanation

Murrine (common pluralization murrini) is an Italian term for colored patterns or images made in a glass cane (long rods of glass) that are revealed when cut in cross-sections. Murrine can be made in infinite designs—some styles are more familiar, such as millefiore. Artists working in glass design murrine in a variety of ways from simple circular or square patterns to complex detailed designs to even portraits of people. Murrine are designed by layering different colors of molten glass around a core, then heating and stretching it into a rod. When cool, the rod is sliced into cross-sections of desired thickness with each slice possessing the same pattern in cross-section.

The murrine process first appeared in the Mideast more than 4,000 years ago and was revived by Venetian glassmakers on Murano in the early 16th century.

It is abit like making a stick of seaside rock but with the added tension of having to do the work in a flame!!  When you chop it up you have the same image or pattern in the chopped pieces which are called Murrine.

There are some amazing glass artist around who make the most fabulous murrine, like Ayako, just look at these beads some truly inspirational work here.

Now mine has a long way to go but I was rather pleased with this one, the yellow in it was an experiment and it worked!

I was also pleased with the top murrine in the photo below...I wanted to try and make a flower and had big purple irises in my mind and was surprised that there was a vague similarity!!

Now not everything in the Studio was rosy this week, I was working at the torch yesterday afternoon and heard a couple of clinks coming from the kiln and was so disappointed to find these casualties lying on the kiln floor!

 

That is the curse and the addictive part of lampworking, you have to go through so many processes to create one bead and all along the way there are so many different influences that can either help you create something special or destroy something you think is special.  But that is the hook you just gotta keep on striving for better and better!!

Well that is all for this week all that remains is a little pic of Milly!  Another of her with her friend Patrick!  Have a lovely weekend and thanks for taking the time to read my blog x

Jennie