Lampwork Glass Beads~ 'Frit Stacking' Ideas

 So... I'm sure many, if not all of y'all bead makers, have some frit mixes lying around. Back when I first started to make beads, I didn't use frit. And it was in the old 'dinosaur' days before Val Cox and her 'Frit Secrets' book came out, so frit mixes were not yet a big part of the glass bead world. Nowadays, a  nice mix of frit can decide the colors of a bead, making that part of the process easy. They are a useful crutch, especially for days when one is feeling a wee bit less than inspired. Just grab a mix and enjoy making the bead! Val's book has a lot of different ideas for how to use frit in a bead; it is a great resource. 

I often feel like I am kind of cheating when I use a prepared frit mix in a bead and it takes a little bit of the creativity away, so I try not to lean on them too heavily. That said, I seem to be in a bit of a frit loving stage. I mean Gaffer's or Reichenbach's royal purple or purple rose frit is simply irresistible! 

While thinking about some of the things that happen when a couple of different frits are mixed, or just a touch more of something is added to a mix, I realized that maybe the frit colors could basically be stacked instead of using them all at once in a mix. Say, for instance, you are inspired by the colors in a violet. Instead of using green and purple together, why not put on some green and then add some purples randomly on top of it. Would this not give more of a violet feet to the whole bead? (Without all the trouble of having to actually put wee violets all over it). How about rolling the bead in a larger size purple frit and then a smaller one~you can see in this example that little bits of purple are on larger dots of purple. Those larger bits of purple must have been sticking out when the smaller purple frit was added, making it look like glass dots were placed on the larger purple bits. Another fun idea!

Today was a 'frit stacking' experiment day. I was pretty happy with the results. As a bonus, interesting reactions sometimes occur between the frits. Here are a couple of the beads and how they happened.

This pink bead started with a base of clear, then CIM rose quartz with triton frit at one end and then another layer of clear all around. The triton was reduced to bring out some shine and then encased for a little extra background play, though that was rather lost in the shuffle after everything else was added. Some Reichenbach iris amber green, opal raspberry and copper ruby were added over the clear layer. These three frits were all about the same size. You can see that some rather interesting things ended up happening on this bead.

Another bead was a play of organic colors and purples. I didn't write down the colors on this bead, but I believe I started with a background of amber green iris (which changes colors a bit as you go), then some large Reichenbach purple rose frit, and then small Gaffer purple rose, which I put all the way across the bead. I don't believe I added any actual green frit to this bead; the iris amber green can make its own green in some instances.

Here are closeups of both of these beads to show some of the yummy reactions that happened!

Making Glass Frit

In an effort to clean up an an ever-growing pile of glass rod ends accruing on my table, I thought it might be time to show off my frit-making skills. I used to use my empty altoid container collection to save little bits of rods- all sorted into piles of like color- for instance, I put all of the aquas together- transparent and pastel alike. No, I did not put each aqua hue into a separate container, I'm not that organized. (And I don't use quite that many altoids). Granted, if you keep all of your 'shorts' separated by color, you can make a nice precise frit mix that is repeatable using the same methods I will outline here.

I'm not a real big user of frit- I'm more of a 'mix as you go' person. Most of the bits I had lying about were in tones of purple, green, and aqua. I piled them all together and they looked pretty good, so that was the frit mix I was going to make.
Again, I will say- your safety is your responsibility. This is what I do, it has not gone through any rigorous testing by any certified safety organization:

1) Put on safety glasses

2) Fill a clean glass jar with at least 4 inches of water (friends have suggested this be cold water- that should make it break even better!) and put it nearby on my torching table.

3) Light the torch.

4) Grab one of the shorts with a pair of tweezers and put it in the torch until it glows a nice red just about all over. Try not to put the tweezers directly into the flame.

5) Drop the hot glass into the jar of water. If it is attached to the tweezers, plunge the whole thing into the water and tap lightly. Usually the glass will detach from the tweezers. If there is a little bit still attached to them, reheat and plunge into a different jar of water to remove it- the 'junk' jar.

6) Do this with all of the pieces of glass. They will shatter as they are placed in the water, but not really into small enough pieces to be used as frit as they are.
*** After I wrote this, a friend told me that she mashes the glass into a thin lollipop shape and the glass naturally breaks into small frit, so it is not necessary to use a hammer. What a great tip! Thanks so much, Lara***

7) Pour the glass through a small strainer that is reserved for this purpose.

8) Let dry on a piece of newspaper.

9) Put glass into an old broken down cereal box or other thin cardboard, or wrap in fabric. Wrap around the glass so that it can't escape easily.

10) Wrap with newspaper and tap with a hammer on a solid surface. Open and see if the pieces are to your liking. If not repeat wrapping and tapping.

11) If desired, the frit can be put through different sizes of mesh to sort it by size.

 That's it! All done and I'm ready to use it.  Frit made of glass with special qualities, like rubino oro or silver reaction colors, should be made separately rather than used in a mix so that the reactions and flame atmosphere can be controlled properly.

There are times when I want to make frit using specific color combinations. To do this, I simply heat the end of a rod and plunge it into my jar of clean water. This is where Lara's 'lollipop' trick could really come in handy!
It is a good idea to reheat the end of this rod right away as it may be a bit cracked at the end. This will save your being surprised by a 'shocky' end later.

Playing with some new frit from Gaffer

I bought a little bit of Chalcedony glass from Gaffer a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still working on getting some good colors out of it. My bead group is meeting again this weekend, so I'll bring some along for us to test out. I haven't really had a chance to play with it too much yet as it's pretty hot in my studio at this time of year. Right now I'm just barely keeping up with the things I 'have' to make.
In the meantime, I've been trying out a couple of the frit samples. Frit has never been my favorite thing, but these were so interesting looking that I couldn't wait to give them a try. Here are some of the beads I've made using the lime aventurine and gold pink extra frits I received.
The lime green is a beautiful bright green with some nice sparkle- perfect for frogs, I think! The aventurine is in the back end of this one.
The gold pink extra is wonderful. It's like Moretti EDP with out all the E and D. In other words, it's all the beautiful pinky-purple color without all the problems. In this bead it's swirled with a bit of gold pink on a background of white Thompson enamel- a nice color combination, and one that's really hard to do with EDP and gold pink as they want very different flame atmospheres.

I'm going to blow some shards with some of the chalcedony and some of the other rods. My fusing buddy is pretty excited about coming over and watching me make some shards. I've got a feeling he may be a little disappointed when he sees that I couldn't blow a nice even globe if my life depended on it. At least he'll have a few samples to take home with him!

I'm going to try and get some photos of the glass group at play this weekend. Wish me luck!

Perspectives exhibition entry

Well, this might be the most exciting news of my bead-making career. I submitted a bead to the International Society of Beadmakers to be considered for an exhibition this summer at the Glass Art Society conference in Corning, New York. I just found out it has been accepted! It is a combination of two of my bead styles- moonscape and fire beads which I named ‘Moonfire’. I was so up in the air about what bead to send, and had gotten it down to that bead or a mask. Moonfire became my choice mostly because the photo looked better. Well, also because I asked everyone I could think of on the internet and they, almost to a gal (I think they were all women) preferred it. That made it a bit easier- after all, there is a jury involved, so I wanted a people pleaser too.



Moonscape bead Fire bead
This is my first year to be a member of the ISGB, and I am pretty excited about all the opportunities it has already offered me. Yes, there is a small fee to participate in some of these things, but it is so nice to get a little bit of validation from folks who really understand exactly what’s involved in making a glass bead.
As I understood it what was wanted was something that would kind of show the connection between modern and traditional lampwork beads. So what makes this bead contemporary? What traditional techniques are involved that I thought might make this bead a candidate for this show? Well, the use of both ‘raku’ and iris gold frit and enamels are rather new. And I think the shape is fairly modern. Using silver to force reactions, well, that seems rather new to me, but it’s very possible that it’s been done forever. The techniques are rather old- really raking, basic shaping, and the use of frit in general are all older than me (and that’s saying something). It’s really hard for me to even guess, really, at which techniques and materials are new, and which are just newly re-discovered.
Anyway, I excited to be a part of this exhibit, and hope that some of you out there in ‘puter land will get a chance to go the GAS conference and have the time to take a peek at my bead and the rest of the exhibition.

Here’s some info from the ISGB about the exhibit:
ISGB is pleased to announce an exciting opportunity. As a member, you are invited to put your best bead forward for a juried exhibit that will be featured at the Glass Art Society (GAS) Conference in Corning, New York, June 2009.
ISGB members hail from all over the world and have wildly different backgrounds, and this exhibit is designed to celebrate that diversity. Artists are encouraged to submit a bead that embodies your inspiration, innovation, and personal 'voice'. Consider unique color combinations, form, and textural elements. Beads should highlight the infinite possibilities of glass with captivating styles, techniques, and processes used in contemporary glass beadmaking.
Perspectives will specifically open for the GAS Conference where artists, collectors, gallery and museum personnel, writers, and critics from around the globe will converge to muse on the medium that unites us all in fascination, glass. The exhibit will be on prominent display in the official GAS Conference hotel, the Corning Radisson, and is expected to remain on display through the end of the summer tourist season.
In addition to the opportunity to have your work showcased in front of glass enthusiasts all summer long, the top three beads with the highest jury scores will share the COVER of the summer issue of The Glass Bead Magazine! Artists of all career stages are encouraged to apply, from emerging artists to artists with established careers.

Seahorses and frit

Wow, blogging once a week is a lot- I'm already overdue for this one. Too many events over the past week- I barely had time to finish out the special orders from last time and get a few bracelets made for market. But now it's time to get back to it, though I generally take Sundays off from the torch, 'cause Saturday market wears me out. I finished up those seahorse earrings; she sent the pics off to a friend, and he wanted a pair for his wife. So I might as well show you a picture. They are a little bit on the bigger side...

My wonderful library bought a book I requested! It's Val Cox's "Frit Secrets" I read the whole thing yesterday- lots of technical info, so I'll have to read it a lot of times to ingest it all. After I've kept the book for a bit and am ready to return it, I'll tell the local beadmakers it's there! I'm excited to try her full raku instructions, the boro-look beads and a couple of other things that I hadn't thought of. I have an old piece of brass from my daughter's college days, and it finally dawned on me that I could use it as a marver, so it's out and ready to go.

I have to admit, I haven't been big on frit beads in the past, except for raku and a bit of iris gold. So now I've got a little bit of a window on what I might be missing. It's always fun to try out new techniques and see how they fit into my 'style'- whatever that is! I have a few frits that have been lying around for years, so I'm ready to go kinda. But I think I'll be buying a few things from Val- she talks some of them up so much that I just HAVE to try!

Ok, I'll see if I have the energy to try a few things out today!