Well, I was chosen as designer of the week on the Artbeadscene blog. Here's the link:
http://artbeadscene.blogspot.com/2008/10/designer-of-week-isinglassdesigns.html
Artbeadscene is a wonderful place to find out about jewelry designs and designers. They have a flickr page where you can enter your own designs, and will send you their new blog entry every day. All you have to do is ask! It's a wonderful resource. Thanks so much to them for choosing this necklace for the "Dark and Stormy Night" theme.
And here are a few of my more recent masks. Have a great Halloween!!!

Making Sculptural Lampwork Beads- tips and tricks

OK, it's time for a few sculptural tips. I never thought for a minute, when I first started making lampwork beads, that I would make so many different kinds of animals out of glass, not to mention bottles and masks. Frankly, I thought they were kind of kitschy, and not my thing. It must have been when I made my first cat, or maybe my first fish, that I realized what fun it could be. And how much practice and skill it actually took. These days, I even take special requests, like the rhino and beagles. I'll find some pictures on the internet so I don't forget something useful, and get to work. Here are a few things I've learned over the years:

All of the beadmaking techniques you have learned can be used to make sculptural beads. The biggest challenge to making these beads is keeping your bead evenly heated, as the bead will not be the same thickness throughout. The designing of sculptural beads is limited only by your imagination.

• Look at pictures to get a good idea of what you want to make. Pay attention to the details, like basic body shape, poses that are natural for the animal, coloration, etc.
• You may want to draw the shape of the bead, analyzing the shape of the sculpture using bead shapes you are familiar with, like round beads, cone, or tubes. This will help you with making your first bead and with repeating the form in the future. I have to admit, I rarely do this, but it was pretty helpful in the beginning to break it down on paper.
• Decide what you will do when. You don't want the smaller details to melt into the large bead while you're working on something else. Pay attention to where your heat is at all times! If I'm making a cat, for instance, I start with the body, and get it well formed before moving on to the head. Once I've got a nice round head attached, I move on to the tail and legs, and finally the smaller details like ears and face. The final step is to pull the tail and legs out a bit and into the position I want, then even out the heat before putting it away in the kiln.
• Remember to think about the balance of the bead- how will it hang on a cord? The bead will need to have more weight on the bottom if it is to hang upright. If the bead is to be placed on a shelf, it will need to sit evenly.
• When you are attaching glass to your bead, spot heat the attachment point. Push the glass you are adding gently onto the bead, pull back slightly, then wait for a slight skin to form before pulling the glass into the desired shape and size and burning it off the rod. If you don’t pause before pulling on the rod, you will probably end up with less glass attached than you wanted. You can always build the glass up a bit at a time, or build using dots of glass on top of one another, but this is slower, and therefore more risky. I rarely end up with the right amount of glass the first time, so I'm always adding a bit here and there!
• Sculptural beads are, by nature, time consuming and therefore subject to breaking. Always remember to reheat often, and keep all the small attachments you add hot- without, of course, melting them into the rest of the bead. Remember that these small parts will cool fastest, so concentrate more of the heat there. Bring them to a slight glow from time to time- just below the point where they will begin to melt and distort.
• If you are planning on flattening the bead, remember that the glass must be at least as thick on each side as the mandrel you are using.
• If you are making a large sculptural bead, you may want to use some pre-made parts that you keep warm in the kiln. Think about what kinds of twisties, murrinis, etc. you may need, and make these in advance.
• It is often useful to use a glass rod to manipulate the glass, rather than a tool. Though this may leave a bit of glass on the bead, there is the advantage that there will be no tool mark to melt out.
• Heat resistant scissors are a useful tool for sculptural beads. They can be used to pinch, stretch or cut the glass instead of tweezers, which would leave a tool mark. Since all tools pull heat out of the glass, any areas where a tool is used must be reheated.
• Remember that you can, as with any bead, adjust your torch flame while you work. If you need to melt out tools marks, or spot heat one area of the bead, you may need to reduce your flame to a point temporarily. Remember to return your flame to normal intensity and mix after only a short time, and reheat the whole bead.
• When you have finished sculpting the bead, slow cool it in the flame, keeping the outside hot while heat from the center dissipates, before putting it in your annealer or vermiculite to cool. Due to the nature of these beads, I would recommend placing them in the kiln immediately rather than using vermiculite or batch annealing later.

I hope these tips are helpful!

Hollow Lampwork Glass Beads

A hollow bead is made on a regular mandrel by joining two disks of glass. The hot air, which gets trapped inside the glass will make the bead expand. Hollow beads take a bit more concentration than some other types of beads; the more careful you are in each step, the easier it will be to keep your bead shaped well in the end. Always remember to read the heat base and reheat often- the glass in hollow beads is very thin and subject to shocking easily.

There are two ways that hollow beads are generally made. You can build two straight disks, or you can build two conical disks. Generally straight disks seem to be preferred, as it is difficult to keep cones from touching the mandrel, and straight disks can be more easily shaped, manipulated and flattened with tools as you go.

Start by making a small spacer bead at what will eventually be each end of your hollow bead. For your first try, you might place these starter beads about 1/2 to 3/4 inch apart on your mandrel. As you make more hollow beads, you will gain a feel for how far apart to place your disks. Be sure the ends of these spacer beads are nice and even where they touch the mandrel. This will make it easier to have a nicely puckered end on the hollow bead when you are done. Making a spacer bead to start will also help to ensure that your hollow bead adheres well to your mandrel.

Be sure each layer of glass you add adheres well to the layer below it. The glass must be wrapped firmly on the previous layer as you spin the bead. When wrapping the glass, your bead should be slightly behind the flame, while the glass rod is in the flame. Make sure the glass rod is heated all the way through, not just on the bottom, so that you don’t pull the bead around and break the bead release. You may be able to wrap and spin as you go, or you may want to pull a bit of glass off the melting rod and attach it to your disk at regular small intervals. Make sure the layers of glass are adhering all the way around, and there are no gaps between the layers. Continue wrapping the first end until you have a disk about ¼ to ½ inch tall. Then move to the second spacer bead and start your disk the same way.

Remember to keep flashing your whole bead in the flame frequently so that it will not cool too much and break apart.

It can be helpful to use your tweezers or another tool such as flatteners to straighten the disks as you go. You can even out globs, and even make the disks somewhat narrower with your tools. Again, be sure your glass stays warm- reheat immediately after using any tools. Move from the second disk back to the first disk, and build it up some more; then go back to the second disk. Continue in this way until your disks are about ½ to ¾ of an inch tall.

Now it is time to start moving the disks together. Use your marver paddle or brass tool to gently push the two disks towards each other. Make sure the disks are hot at the outside, but cooler near the mandrel- i.e. concentrate your heat more towards the outside of the disks. You want to be able to push the disks so that the outer edges meet, or come fairly close, without moving the glass near the mandrel around. There are several ways make the disks meet. You can get the disks close and bridge them using a hot rod, use tweezers to bring them together, or just push the outer edges of the disks until they’re nearly together. To help to stabilize the disks and keep them from collapsing onto the mandrel, bridging in at least four evenly spaced places around the bead is extremely helpful. In any case, you will need to run a bit of hot glass around the seam between the disks. This will help ensure that you don’t have any thin spots that can blow out later.

Slowly heat the whole bead until it’s glowing. Turn the hot bead in all directions to check for holes. You will need to put a glass patch over any holes you see. You are now ready to round the bead up. Use the heat of the torch and gravity to round up the bead, marvering only lightly as needed. The bead may seem to collapse at first, and then the air trapped inside will puff it up a little.

To gain nice puckered ends on your hollow bead, focus the heat on one half of the bead. Allow the glass to cool and droop down on the mandrel. Let the glass harden somewhat before you move on to the other end and repeat the process.

The hollow bead can now be decorated like any other bead- with dots, lines, raking, even plunging. It can also be shaped, keeping in mind that you don’t want the bead to touch the mandrel other than at the ends. Just remember to reheat often.

When these beads are ready to be taken off the mandrel, I prefer not to soak them. Just pull them off of the mandrel dry and blow out the bead release before cleaning. Once the bead release gets wet, it is much harder to get out of the bead. Be careful not to breathe in the sludge dust as you do this- you should wear a mask. If you'd rather get the sludge wet, you can clean out the excess by blocking one end, filling with water, putting your fingers over both holes, shaking and then blowing it out kind of like an easter egg. Take care not to ingest any of the sludge (yuck).

And now, a a quick look at a hollow in the making:

The oh-so-important footprint and building the disks up on each end, a bit at a time. If necessary, use some tweezers or a flattener to even out these disks. Be sure not to leave holes between the wraps.

See how they start out parallel, and then start getting nudged towards the middle. Your paddle or a brass shaper will help with this. Make sure they don't touch the mandrel!

The bridging begins. And what a mess this one is! Check it for holes, or all your work will be for nothing.

Here it is after just a little bit of time with the paddle. The hot air on the inside helps to blow it out into a nice orb. Keep it moving (but not TOO fast) and gravity will also help with the shape. You can decorate it in any way you like, even plunging works (as long as you don't push too hard with your pick). I started the turtle decoration on this bead by rolling it in a bit of white enamel. One side was flattened somewhat- taking care not to flatten too much, so it didn't touch the mandrel. The rest of the decoration was added, a bit of flame annealing was done to even out the temperature, I annealed it in the kiln, and voila:

A finished hollow sea turtle.

Gelato fish

Well, I just have to show my new style of fish. Not so different than my older fish, after all, but I'm loving my new ultra clear glass. Why gelato? I can't really say- it's just that icy, airy feel that I get when I have the pleasure of eating some really good Italian gelato. And of course the glass is mostly Italian, so it just seems to fit.