Lampwork Class Finale

Remember the lampwork class that I took? It's finished now, and the "oh yea, I think I've got this," turned into "oh, no I don't." The class was great, afterall, it involved women bantering and melting glass! And I came home with a few souvenirs.

Day 2 of lampwork class. 6 hours. Long. We learned lots of techniques.

We continued with dots. Melting them into the bead as well as making them more dimensional. Oh, and I discovered I really like this ivory color. Looks like coffee, well with lots of cream.

Latticino twist, sounds nice right? Not too much success for me with this technique. I quickly gave up after these three beads. They are a hot mess!

Learned cones and football shape (no pictures?). A little more practice and I think I could get these to look better, same with the football. 

Moving on to Day 3. More new techniques. Class was only 3 hours, which I felt like was the perfect amount of time.

I'm digging the dots. And dots in dots. The red bead with the blob, we were trying to do the dots and give them a little twist. I only tried once but it was more difficult than it looked.

Stripes. Like!

Liked these too! Trapping air bubbles in the bead. Fun!

Now, I wish I could go back and take the same class over again. And, I have a whole new appreciation for the work involved in making lampwork beads.

Have a great day!

Look!

Take a peek at what I did yesterday! Yep, I went and played with molten glass, Squeal! It was a ton of fun!

My first lampwork beads

 

A couple weeks ago, I found out that the Rehoboth Art League was offering a class in making glass beads. Using lampwork beads in a lot of my work this is something that I have been interested in for a while. However, I have avoided taking a class in the past, as I have an obsessive personality. You know the type, something peeks my interest, sign up for class, like it, then I want to run out any purchase the materials to be able to "do" on my own, then may or may not ever put those new materials to good use. This class was so close, and very reasonable, how could I resist?

The class was a load of fun! We learned to pull stringers, the technique for making a round bead, then adding dots. I sat behind the torch for about 2 hours and made a small collection of somewhat cattywampus, somewhat round beads in lots of my favorite colors (except that pink). Next Wednesday the class is for 6 hours. Hoping I can hang that long, as my hand started aching after 2 hours yesterday, and is a little sore today. But, we will not be torching the whole time, new techniques to learn.

Can't wait til next Wednesday...dare I say I'd like to be able to make my own glass beads.