Torch Time Again!

 Good golly, I have not been blogging much! Just popping in now to say my torch is back up and running after being on hiatus for a couple of months. I've started out with some fancy silver-cored fish pendants and glass whorls for spinning yarn.
New curved beads are on the to-do right now list! We'll see how that goes~ they are always a bit of a challenge.

Kumihimo and Lampwork Fish- A Perfect Pair!

As just about anyone knows who watches me online, I make A LOT of lampwork glass fish beads. Why? Well, I love playing with the colors and designs. Every time I learn some kind of new lampwork trick or technique, I find myself thinking- 'I wonder how this would look as a fish?' And so off I go....
 
A few months ago a lovely jewelry designer named Libby found my etsy shop. She lives on the Atlantic coast, so was drawn to trying out my lampwork fish with some of her jewelry making techniques. I have to say, I am impressed. Her lovely Kumihimo necklaces are perfectly matched to the colors in the fish, and set them off wonderfully.
But kumihimo isn't all she does- the accent beads she used on the first necklace pictured here are just yummy!
Libby has two different shops on etsy- LadyBGems, which features her handmade jewelry and KittyKatGlassDesigns, which features her handmade fused glass (don't miss the June sale in this shop!).
I rarely get to see what someone has made out of some of the beads I created, and I'm just delighted with what Libby has done with these fish. Thanks for letting me share!

Scrap fishies

 A couple of months ago, I decided to try making a fish by using up some of the twistie scraps I have lying around. I was pretty please with it, so I've made a couple more recently. They have a kind of different feel to them than the fish I normally make. First I make a clear core, then cover it with a color that accentuates the scraps I'll be using. Next they are rolled in silver foil, which I burn off to give a natural, organic look, and then the twistie scraps are randomly applied.

The other day, when my gas was running out, I took a clear rod of glass, heated it and applied the twistie scraps to it, melted it into a blob, and then twisted it. Kind of re-twisted twistie. The first fish pictured is the one I used that on. I ended up twirling it a bit on each side of the fish body to give it a nicer look. You can see a bit of silver haze on the bottom fish- I really like this look.

One thing about using scraps- I tend to use colors I wouldn't normally use together. It's always nice to try out some different things and see the results!

Glass Fish Inspirations

Lampwork glass fish are one of my favorite kinds of beads to make. They are a lot of fun to wear all by themselves as pendants. Most folks who purchase them use them in this way, so I bail them and put them on cords before I ship them out.
I find you can do almost anything with a fish body and it looks pretty nice. Last week, I decided to try making a couple of more realistic fish. The first thing I did was to search the internet for photos of fish that looked interesting to me. I was looking for bright colors, colors I might not normally think to mix together in a bead, and interesting patterns. One of the fish that interested me was a clown trigger fish. I changed up the color just a little bit- adding a little more green than was strictly called for, and came up with a sweet little fish that was quite different from others I'd made. I used Thompson glass enamels for some of the color- I like the way it works when I want to imitate a natural pattern.
The next challenge I set myself was to use up some of the glass twistie scraps I had lying around. This one is purely a fantasy fish, with a base of white and silver and a lot of pastel colors that meshed nicely.
The last fish I'll be showing today is what I'm calling a sari (or saree) fish. It is an idea I'm still working out, where one pattern is pulled across a different base pattern, just as a sari is draped around a body. This red one is my favorite in that design.