Saying it with flowers....

Well the first orders are trickling in for Christmas.

This custom order was great as it allowed me to experiment with encased flowers (which I love!

First I made a number of small thin sticks of  glass called 'stringers' as shown below: The green one in my hand was used to make the 'stem' colour behind the flowers on some of the beads.

Next I had to set up a couple of critical bits of equipment for the task.....Do you see the silver cylindrical things by the sides of the torch... These are my special arm rests for delicate work; (which are two toilet rolls wrapped in silver foil!!) Very important and very technical as you can see!!!

God! Looking at it there, it looks like a right mess! All I can say is when I'm mid-project, the glass rods go everywhere (much worse than this) as you just tend to grab for the thing you need and then drop that and move on to the next; there's not much room for order when molten glass is in your hand!)

The close ups you are about to see all use the same method to make but the petal colours were different sizes and colours. The beads all started off life as a minuscule white mini-bead on the mandrel. Then I added a clear layer (quite thin), then the stem layer. Next, white was laid on to the bead to provide a backdrop for the coloured petals, then the petals. A bit of shaping of the petals was next. Finally a deepish coat of pure clear glass encased the whole lot... Ta Da!!!

This is either a forget-me-not or an iris depending on how you see it..

Little violet

pansy

primrose? (I know it should have 5 petals..)

briar rose

I think the red and pink is my favourite. (Something about the colour combo I think)

Here is the set all finished and ready to be a nice Crimbo pressie:

I know that in the end the Christmas build up will be chaos (it was last year), but if any of you lovely people have any particular requirements that you know of now in the way of glassy, beady presses, please let me know in good time as most pieces will take at least a week to turn around. (by the time I've made it at the torch, then kilned it, cleaned it, done the glass work, and then the silver work and mounting after).

I am planning to be at the Oldfield School Christmas fair again (if they'll have me). It's on the 5th of December which is a Friday from 6pm to 8pm in Maidenhead.

Maybe see you there... x

Endless Ocean...

Glass and water, water and glass.., a mouthwatering combo any day of the week...

Waterworld....Do you remember that film?

Do you remember that AMAZING blue of the sea, and even better, soooo much sea going on for miles and miles? I know the film itself might be a bit cheesy but I really liked it (is that bad?) and these beads I'm going to show you remind me of that endless ocean feeling that you get from that film!

Ooh and better mention.... these aren't sold yet, so if anyone likes the look of them then they will be coming on to the Etsy shop soon. www.etsy.com/shop/meadowhawkglass.

OK. So this first bead is made with reactive silvered glass and then has a collage of layered colour on top to bring depth to it. (I really liked this one while I was making it and knew it would be pretty in the end when it came out of the kiln).

side view showing the greenier bits

side view showing the pretty star-shape made with the layers of watery glass colours

other side view showing the bluier bits

So bead number two is also made with silvered glass but a different type. We are more in the shallows and rock pools again (you know how I love a good rock pool)!!!

this bead has a ring of bubbles just on the one side

And lastly we are back in deeper waters. There is a bit more turbulence here and you might think you see something green and glowing but the next time you look from a different angle it feels like its gone! 

The bubbles of air alternate around this bead creating movement in the glass under the surface!

light shining straight through the bead

the waters are still again..

Here are all three beads together as they might appear on a bracelet...

That's all for now folks. Better get back in that workshop.... xx

It could just be my impression but.....

When you get a message like this....

"I was wondering if you could make some beads which are inspired by my favourite paintings..." 

well, my mouth started watering and the torch began to beckon..... oooh I thought; you've just got to have a go haven't you!?

Well, I was very taken by the idea but didn't quite know where to begin... I love it when someone asks me to do something that I'm not sure that I can do..All worried and excited all at the same time...

Now,  if you want to do a little quiz then 

don't scroll down yet!

Study the pictures of the three beads below carefully:

Which three paintings do you think these beads in the pictures are inspired by............ 

no peeking too far down the page mind, till you've had a guess!! 

(Clue: Think Impressionism and Post-Impressionism)

Have you had a guess? 

OK now we can scroll on     ;-)

ANSWERS:

The three fave paintings were:

Van Gogh - Starry Night

Klimt - The Kiss

Monet - Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge.

Did you guess right???

The fab request for the beads came in during the summer holidays, so I waited a couple of weeks for the kids to go back to school, having momentary google flicks to the millions of renditions of the said paintings to study them a bit, then I had a play..

VAN GOGH

This one I found the easiest of all for some reason. I think because the swirl of the sky lends itself to the swirl of the glass and the colours were clearly in my head so I could translate them to glass colours straight away. You know how much I love the night sky.... ;-). So here's the finished bead.

It was great to get that movement and the spirals helped me to get the impression of the brush stroke direction which in some areas seems pretty deep so I used plenty of clear encasing glass! Finishing them with sizeable bubbles, I hope adds to the feeling of a 'lightness of hand' which I think comes across so much in this painting.

KLIMT

This one I found crazy hard to do. (Loads of attempts)... I think it is because there are so many contradictions in the painting so there are many very different aspects all vying for their special piece of attention... Round female shapes and swirls, masculine blocks and straight lines (which don't really lend themselves to glass!) This is where I got to:

I liked the way the black and ivory section mirrored the section on the 'mans side' on the left and the way the glass webbed I got those kind of squarey bits I was after. Of course, the other main constituent had to be plenty of glittery gold to bring it to life.

MONET

Here is the Monet bead.  I wanted to get an idea across of the brush strokes and the watery-ness in the painting, the depth and the colours (Soooo many colours here to give credence to!!) I love the end result, but phew... I definitely kissed a few frogs before I came across this one sitting on my lily-pad!

I ended up looking at the texture and colours on the water (sort of bottomy-right in the painting), I really wanted to capture that beautiful almost iridescent blue there.

That's it for now folks as it is really late. (I've got more stuff to show you but it will have to wait till another day..)

Night x

Playing Snakes and Lizards

Hi All,

So the other day I got a very unexpected and exciting request. Could I make a complete present (some special beads and bracelet) for a 21st birthday. Of course I could I said, (but did I speak too soon because this turned out to be a particularly CUSTOMISED custom order!!)

I learned that the lady in question looking forward to her birthday, was an avid reptile enthusiast and has many, many different animals of all shapes, species and colours.

Could I make beads that represented some of her

actual

animals? I didn't know, but I thought it would be a lot of fun trying...

So the adventure began...

First of all I got a CD of pictures passed to me in secret so that I could see what I was aiming for. I was a little apprehensive but....when I saw the wonderful patterns and colours I was blown away and I couldn't wait to start to see how close I could get to these in glass!

I spent a few days sussing out colours and textures:

Lots of questions whirled around my head. Some colours react better with each other than others so I did some 'test beads' to try out colour reactions. Also how would it be best to convey the very special textures on the lizards and snakes without distorting the patterns. To this end I got some great constructive criticism from friends and family.  (My boys are my best (or worst?) critics. I can never decide which!!)

Once I'd had a little 'play' with them it was time to get down to it, so the torch was fired up and the session began. People didn't see much of me on that day, but I was really happy with what I put into the kiln and I was even happier with what came out!!

So may I introduce you to the beautiful menagerie. (I must say a big thank you to Abi who has given me permission to use her pictures of her wonderful babies.) In each case I have popped in a picture of the animal with a couple of views of the bead itself.

1. 'Bubbles'

Well, Bubbles has to come first. I absolutely love this one. It is made with grey and an acid yellow in the core and then plenty of clear encasing and hints at texture with little bobbly bits of clear in a kind on randomised pattern.

2. Arya

Arya is lovely. She has a wonderful pattern and I wanted to do her justice. I used three colours and thinner encasing, so her texture would be nearer the surface.

3. Marbles

Marbles has a really interested organic looking texture. There are lots of colours here and a kind of dusty appearance so I used some frit in the core, and mica in the encasing to try and bring that to life.

4. Belle

Here is Belle. What a stunner with her lovely grey/green background and red spots! I loved the way that the light grey colouring seems to sweep around her body diagonally but the reddy/brown is more randomly placed, so I tried to attempt the same on the surface decoration of the bead.

5. Pascal

This one is called Pascal. How the light played on his body is really interesting. I'm not sure he is actually blue like this, but it really made a pretty bead. I did a bumpy version and a smooth to try out different ways.

6.Scorpio

With Scorpio, I tried to build a bit of that metallic shine that he has on his body to the side of the bead, but also create a nice contrast to some of the more 'busy' beads so that the bracelet as a whole had continuity

and

contrast.

7. Celery

Celery is amazing. I wanted to try and bring in the lovely almost iridescent shine that his/her scales have. So I used an antique cream core, encased it and then added lovely pearlescent fairy dust on the surface.

8. Lola

Now a little bird told me that this little beauty is somewhat of a favourite with Abi, so this one had to be 'just right'. Of course, because I knew this, she ended up being the trickiest one!! I hope Abi feels that it reminds her enough of her lovely Lola!!

9. Seraphim

Seraphim has a beautiful burning orange colour, but the individual smooth scales give a great effect, I wanted to try to capture that so I ended up mixing orangey glass colours and using a golden colour glass to add the tiniest dots which I melted in to give the effect of scales.

10. Mack Snow

Now, Mack Snow is another one of my favourites. His pattern is such a gift!! I knew from the moment I saw him that he would look amazing. He has an ivory core with thick encasing of crystal clear with 4 sets of adjacent dots going around his circumference. I added clear bobbles again for that important texture.

11. Spock

Spock is so sweet. I would love to meet him in person someday.. I started with a silvered ivory base. The most important thing to get with this one was his minute little black irregularly shaped speckles. I love this bead too. I still have this one, so if no-one nabs him soon I might take him under my wing!!

12. Stella

And...last but not least one of the most beautiful ones of all. Stella has a striking pattern of bright sunshine yellow and black. I would love to meet her in person too. It was a definite one to include, because those colours look so stunning next to each other and the colour combination is very unusual in a bead.

A selection of the beads on a Trollbead bracelet with some silvers in between..

Well, here are some of the beads shown together on a silver Trollbead bracelet, so you can get the idea of what they look like together. I have added some silvers here as well to show how it might look with a bit of shine in between. I soooo enjoyed doing them. They were tricky, but very rewarding.

And here was the finished bracelet all complete the day before Abi's birthday. We decided on a rubber and sterling silver charm bracelet because it was more fitting with the theme of the beads. (Not so 'pretty pretty' as it were)...All the beads were cored securely with sterling rivets and there are two sterling silver stopper beads on it to help keep the glass in place. There is plenty of space for additional silver charm beads or glass.

I hope Abi sends me a picture in the months/years to come to show me how it's grown!!

That's it for now. Quite a lot of excitement in the studio recently, I better get on and make my next ones and stop writing otherwise I shall be behind!!!

Take care,

Chellie xx

Starry Starry Night...

Wow!

It's been a bit of a journey bead wise this last week or two.

You might remember that I had been asked by a lovely customer to make some "Night Sky" themed charm beads.. Well, I have loved the challenge and finally can show you all what I've been up to..

I'll start with a picture of them all in one, and then go into each one in detail...

This picture tries to show each of the sixteen beads as a summary.

OK. Details on the beads in the top line:

Details on the middle set:

 And finally the ones on the bottom row:

So that's what I've been up to. I've got to get straight back on it though because I have a few bits waiting now, as I think I got a bit caught up in all this Night Sky lark! I will let you know which other ones are available soon.

My next adventure are a set of rainbows for a very special lady and preparing for the stall at the Summer Fair on the 7th June. Wish me luck

Take care

Round the Twist!

Been on quite a bobbly journey recently with all those rockpooly beads and the like.. 

Well after getting all the bobbly orders and off to their new homes I have been doing twisty beads. Can't seem to stop!

It's really funny how you seem to go in phases; everything I have produced in the last couple of days has had twists (or twisties) in them!

And... Am really excited as am going to make my first set of 'night sky' inspired charm beads soon. I don't quite know how they will turn out at the mo. but it's a lovely concept and can't wait to start. (..just need to do a few other bits first as always...).

Been looking at some images for ideas: 

Do make comments/suggestions of themes if you think of any. So far I've been thinking:

Starry, starry night:

Aurora borealis:

Comet

Nebula:

Meteor/meteorite:

Moonscapes:

Moon dust:

Also:

Moon Rock

Witching hour

Black hole

Neptune

UFO 

Now,... how these ideas might come to life as beads I do not quite know yet, but I'll be having a lot of fun trying to make it happen ;-)

Watch this space to see how it goes! Wish me luck x