I made this set of beads a few years ago. I really liked the colour combinations and the way in which the ivory base reacted with the transparent green and blue. It produced a gorgeous almost watercolour effect. A couple of weeks ago I was looking through my selection of beads for inspiration and stumbled across this set of beads and remembered how I wanted to develop this watercolour effect further ...... so I did .....
I made these beads in pretty much the same way as the first set. I used an ivory base and added a strip of transparent blue and transparent green. I super heated the bead to help invoke a reaction with the ivory and them mixed things up a little with my faithful set of pliers. The bead was re-heated to make a round bead and to create the puckered ends around the bead holes. I have a thing about bead holes .... you may have guessed. I prefer them to be finished to a very high standard. I like my bead holes to be puckered and rounded in towards the bead hole. There are no sharp edges to my beads they are finished to a very high standard.
Whilst I was making these beads I thought to myself "I wonder what these would look like if I sculpted a design onto the surface of the bead?" I had a go and instead of melting the colours into the glass, I created this ribbon sculpture on the surface of the bead. It looks quite effective. I love the way the glass moves when you heat it just right. It is very fluid and keeps this illusion when it is cooled. It gives the jewellery designer many different ways in which they can string this bead to great effect.
This was a great set of beads to make and I will definitely be developing the sculpted ribbon bead in more detail (so please don't copy this design). I have plans to make a whole set of these beads in various different colours, designs, etched and not etched ..... the list is endless ..... my sketch book is full of ideas .... pages worth!
This bead set is available in my shop on Etsy. If you click on a photograph a link will take you straight there.
Sarah xx
No comments:
Post a Comment