Kim Fields: Sculptural Flowers Class at Bifrost Copenhagen

Last week I and a bunch of other lampworkers had a great time with the lovely Kim Fields, teaching sculptural flowers at Bifrost. Oh my, was it ever hard!

Kim's flower technique is quite advanced and takes a LOT of attention and focus from first timers.

Kim Fields showing the first bead, having everybodys attention

These are my beads from the first day.
First a small basic flower. I made mine in babyblue, with 5 petals. This one came out okay.

Basic babyblue flower

The second one, a dogwood flower, was larger, and that alone made it more difficult. My petals almost got away from me a couple of times, but I pushed them back in and gave up on the final shaping  ... well, here it is. The rubino oro came out well at least :)

A dogwood flower (supposedly)

The last bead of day 1 was a poppy, with 2 rows of petals. Phew!
Keeping all those from touching, and also keeping them all squished and nicely thin, was quite a challenge. Kim demoed it in periwinkle, but I wanted a bright red one, like the first single petal she had made to show the shape and how to ruffle the edge.

Kim's tip of the day: make single petals untill you know what you are doing. Then worry about getting them made directly at the bead.

Kim's single poppy petal. Sweet!

My first ever Poppy!

Apparently I squished the inner petals a few times too many, which made the black part smear the whole petal. The outer ones are fine, but hard to see. I think this calls for a do-over :)

We also made our own cane. I am very pleased with mine, so I might just keep it forever :)

Day 2, another challenging day:

This one, shot from it's very best angle here that makes it look fairly okay, was quite difficult, with 2 layers of different coloured leaves and petals. It is made sideways on a small barrel, so no hole in the center.

We also made a small leaf, but mine broke so I tossed it. It looked very nice until then :)

This final flower, the sweet pea ... well, it doesn't really have a good angle, so there you go. It's rather tiny, so perhaps a larger size would have been better to start out with.

Tiny Sweet Pea flower

And here they are all together for a show of size.

Phew! That was a hard 2 days, but very rewarding. Many thanks to Kim for traveling this far to teach us, to Jette for arranging the classes and to all the students for being there and completing the experience.

My seaglass pendants are published, yay!

Whee! My beads are in Soda Lime Times again, Yay!
This months issue (july) is ocean themed, and my pendants are on page 11. 

I had made these beads more than a year ago, wanting to sandblast them, but the hobby kit I bought ran out of canned air after1½ bead (the blue one), so I knew that was not the way to go. But this year at the Danish Lampworkers meet-up I treated myself to a new tool. I bought a tumbler!

I had to try it out right away, so in went the water, the fine powder siliciumcarbide, the little scratchy ceramic bits and finally the beads ...

Before tumbling, 2 blue ones sandblasted

and less than 10 hours later I had a great first result. I am very happy with the lines of clear surface in the swirls and in other parts that I had shaped.

'Seaglass' pendants

I think it could be a very interesting technique to try out. Making yummy smooth frosted beads with deliberate patterns in clear impressions. Doesn't it sound intriguing?

If you know someone who does that, please let me know. I'd love to see examples.

Glasperletræf 2014 - Danish Glassbead Society yearly meet-up, Part Il, the Beadmarket

On sunday we welcome the public and set up a small market. This year it had grown to 11 booths with several new people joining in.

The new people included:

Frank Miguletz of FaxArt 
I were very impressed by the amount, the size and the precision of his beads. I had seen pictures online, but nothing beats the touching-holding of the real stuff.

 

Sabine Übelhör of Flammenliebe  
Sabine makes beautiful feminine beads and ringtops. Cute, colourful and full of details.

Dorthe Andersen-høyer
How fun to meet this lampworker, who is practically my neighboor :) And what beautiful flower necklaces she makes. I want the pink one! (or possibly the green or the golden/brown one)

Jane Bundgaard of Bundgaard strik og stearin 
maker of fabulous fun lampwork buttons, button bracelets and much more

 

Britta Christoffersen of Krea-huset  
I especially love her disc necklace. Wow!

Of the repeat sellers I'd like to show you

Martina Schlemminger of die Kleine Verroterie
Her booth is full of cute creatures and always colourfull

Manuela Hagn of BavarianBeads
offering up all her many, many presses and showing amazing beads made with them. Unfortunately all my close-ups had a lot of glare, so I only have Group shots for you.

Jens Kondrup of jckondrup
blower of very large 'chaos'-balls, and tripple connected schnaps glasses

 

 

Birgitte Ekholm Gaardsted of Ekholm Design
odd organic shapes flows from this lampworker

Lisbeth Larsen of Galleri Lisbeth L
Strict shapes in playful colours

Connie Sørensen of Søglas
a tray of colourful fish pendants

Bodil and Otto Zebitz
Many, many ideas spring forth from this lampworking couple

And of course, myself, Lene Piasecki of Profusion Art Glass :)
Pendants and pins galore

Sorry you missed it? Come by next year, or use the links :)

Glasperletræf 2014 - Danish Glassbead Society yearly meet-up, Part l, the Demos

What a great weekend, as always, when we have our annual lampwork meet-up.

I have taken so many pictures so I will split them up in a couple of posts. This first part is for the saturday demos. Do click the pictures for a better view.

Saturday is for members only, and wall to wall demos. A very interesting and fun day.

First up was the lovely Martina Schlemminger, who demoed first a cute spotted duck, then a little Swabish pig (not pictured here).

Martina Schlemminger

Manuela Hagn demoed a sweet old style teddybear. It was brown and without murini, but shaped like this lighter one from her booth.

Manuela Hagn

Then Frank Miguletz stepped in to show us a wigwag

Frank Miguletz

and Christiane Strauss set a ruby zirkonia into a ringtopper

Christiane Strauss

By then we were all very hungry and it was time for lunch.

After lunch Dorry Tierry Niclou showed her technique for hollow ringtops with things inside. Only very small things can go in as they have to pass through the nut in the bottom. She made two, one smooth and one with an impression of an ammonite on the top. Fascinating ...



Dorry Tierry Niclou

Frank Miguletz showed how to make his smiley beads

Frank Miguletz

and then it was time for the annual general assembly of the beadsociety. We went to have dinner at Øster Højst Kro afterwards.

When we returned Jens Kondrup made a nectar cup for butterflies, shaped like a flower, and a tiny goblet.

Jens Christian Kondrup

Tina Moslund showed us how to do enamels with a torch, and gave many tips for ending necklaces securely and putting locks on them. Very usefull information :)

Tina Moslund

By then I was very tired and took off for my B&B while others continued hanging out.
Saturday is always a very long, intensely informative and interesting day. I love it!

On sunday there were demos too, but alas I missed two since I spent the day tending my booth, mingling and doing some shopping :)

The two I missed were Jens Kondrup making his large hollow kaos beads, and Britta Christoffersen showing how to make a tiny beermug.

I did get to see Connie Sørensen making an ancient zigzag pattern

and Jane Bundgaard give tips on how to make buttons.

Oh, there are so many possibilities and not enough time to try it all :)