More Lampwork

I have been practicing! Some I am happy with some not so much lol! But I will post them anyway so that I have a good record of my progress. These beads are at the the 5 to 10 hours at the torch mark. The almost clear ones are called cirrus. And the white ones have sangria brown as the dots. The yellow ones are some tries at encasing with clear and the yellow barrel shaped one and the funky shaped one are a shot at raking and encasing. Not too bad since it was first attempt. The blue bead is black encased in the palest of blue. I REALLY like this one! (of course I haven't been able to duplicate this but I will keep trying). Then some others using the same colors but the black is much more predominant. I like them, just not as much as the first one lol! And I think I am doing okay over all, mostly I am working on round, and dot placement with a tiny bit of lines and other stuff thrown in.

My First Lamp Work Bead Making Class

So I took my first lamp work glass class last Saturday. Can I tell you I am soooo hooked lol! (Thank you Mary for your patience and generosity, you were a great teacher!) I bought the HotHead torch on the spot (thank goodness it was only $40 and hooks right up to the canister of map gas $7.95 at Home Depot) I already have proper venting for my metal work so I was good to go. My teacher was generous enough to send me home with a couple of rods of glass and a couple of mandrels etc to get started so I was playing with glass for the last couple of days. I was also lucky enough to discover that Franz Art Glass is having a sale (60% off!) until the 21st of August. (go check it out I got way more glass than I thought I was going to be able to). So I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of my stuff! I am going to post pictures of my first beads that I made at home so try to hold your laughter. I am still working on getting them round and symmetrical. Some are close, some not so much lol. Also just playing with dots and lines, the basics so to speak.