Learning new things... and being patient

The other day I saw a link to a tutorial that demonstrated how to do flames on beads. Now, I know it's probably obvious, but as a Harley girl and a lampwork artist, I LOVE flames! I hadn't ever tried them on a bead, though.

Here's the tutorial that I used to try the technique. Jim Anspach, thanks for taking the time to write it all down. I love it and have sooo many new things I want to try now!

Now let's talk about the beads. Whenever I try something new I always have to remind myself to be patient. New techniques take time and even with the best directions you're going to make some mistakes. So far, I've made several but have learned a lot along the way.

Here are the two beads I made the first night. I used light aqua and after they came out of the kiln realized I should have tried one with dark aqua instead. These were supposed to be bicones but as you can see in the photos, I haven't mastered that part yet.









Last night I gave it another try and this time used the dark aqua glass. While I was finishing up the bead I realized my bead release had broken off of the mandrel and was now spreading beautifully onto the bead. Ugh! I finished the bead anyway and even took photos of it.


















It's not easy to see in the photos but it's across the entire top of the bead all the way around the bead hole. *sigh* Ah well, I'll be trying this again and hopefully next time it will come out a little better. :)

Hope your weekend's off to a beautiful start wherever you are!

~Wendy