When I started painting professionally, the internet was in its infancy. No real blogs, no Facebook, no My Space, people just messing around with HTML code hoping for a little corner of the Internet highway.
If I been given the opportunity to document my painting stories at that time it would have been quite an adventure, the highs and lows, the experimentation of new color mixtures and sharing many of my first paintings on eBay. It’s been a long journey and I hold fond memories of those times.
Anticipation...
Over the past few months I have explored the magic and astounding elements of glass. I have been wanting to expand my jewelry line and got to the point where I wanted to pronounce own voice with beads that I was creating myself. This exciting art medium is something that I have never encountered before and miraculously enough I have really connected and gravitated to this art form. So, I thought I would share with you my journey and growth through progression in soft glass and working with a torch to manipulate molten glass into cool wearable art.
Learning a new art medium is challenging for anybody and even though I am a professional artist and designer I crave to learn new things.
The creation setup!
With the risk of embarrassment, I am sharing with you some of my first solo pieces. Now mind you, I tend to be a perfectionist and not a fan of sharing ANY projects midstream or in stages of creation. But since I have committed to sharing this journey, here goes:
Getting acquainted with glass - the infamous blob!
I figured I would work with some of the trial colors that I wouldn’t feel too much of a loss if they turned out badly. I tend to focus on perfection and had to remind myself to practice the basics over again until I got it… Get it?… Yeah… OK…. duh!
In my previous post; “Torch Stories Part I“, I demonstrated my persistence to get my workspace set up, thus learning the fundamentals of laying the tile and getting the right size counter top made. I am pretty driven person and when I set my mind to accomplish something I do it!
Aqualicious, worked so hard on this one I couldn't remove it from the mandrel... Yikes!
So on to melting glass…. my first few attempts of getting the right propane and oxygen mix to melt the glass without my instructor was a total trial and error. I am on my own now and trying to remember the dual coordination of spinning the mandrel in one hand and melting the glass rod in the other. Too hot can compromise the glass colors, not enough heat won’t melt the glass. Sounds simple…. HA…. I had to remember one simple thing. Practice, practice practice and don’t burn the crap out of my fingers!
Melting it all in... abstractly so and then some!
A small stack of beads that I felt were worthy of being included into an upcoming project… I really love the look of encased beads, where the main color is in the core of the bead and then clear glass is wrapped around it giving it a cool sphere look. (the light blue bead, second from the top is an encased bead as well as the green one on the bottom).
Flavors of glass!
I find (right now) for every ten beads I make, I get four that turn out pretty good and are worthy of . As I move forward, I will document my journey and post images of the progression. So stay tuned!
