Tolkien Event at Galleri Castens!

The premiere of the new Hobbit movie is just around the corner, and jeweler extraordinaire Karin Castens of Galleri Castens in Copenhagen is making an event of it.

She has made a series of jewelry with an elven theme. It fits her style perfectly, and this saturday, on dec. 8'th at 2pm you are invited to come to her beautiful shop and enjoy a free Tolkien themed harp concert and the unveiling of her new pieces.

She has only revealed one of her designs, a gorgeous pair of earrings. They are so very pretty and I want them! I'll pet them and squeeze them and name them 'my precious'.
You can see them here, on her facebook page, where you might also be very lucky and win a pair! Yes, Galleri Castens has been touched by the spirit of Christmas and is giving away treasures right and left (or at least a fabulous piece every sunday until Christmas). Go and like her page NOW to have a chance at winning.
 
Karin also asked all of us, who have pieces in her gallery, if we would like to participate in creating Tolkien inspired jewelry for the event. Why yes, yes I would :)

My first idea got dumped pretty quickly, and my second thought was to make orc teeth and maybe some bones. But when I showed my children the tooth I had made, and asked them what it was (is it a pelican? is it a tadpole? well, at least one child suggested it was a claw) it was pretty obvious I'd need more time to practice to be able to pull that off.

In the end I was very pleased to send in this leaf and flower necklace on handpainted silk ribbon.

Making this have me tempted to do an all flowers necklace, with different colours and sizes all around the neck. That would be lovely for spring :)

Now I am looking very much forward to saturday, where I will go and have a listen and a look at all the beauties that has been made. Want to join me? :)

Kim Fields: Take Flight Class, at Bifrost Copenhagen

So finally, here are my bird beads from the Kim Fields class, in order of completion.

Day 1:

First bird, 3 layers of wings on such a small body is not easy. The head is tilted to the left. I didn't mean to, but I like it :)

Second bird, an owl, came out kind of okay. With a white coating on the belly, wings on the back, a tiny bit of a tail and many many tiny little claws. The eyes were difficult, in that the indentations in the white were easily lost since white glass is so soft. The beak is more of a nose, but the placement is good. The horns ... meh.

Bird no.3. A little extra one I fit in, in the afternoon. Nothing special.

Day 2:

Bird no.4 the Pudgie. Markings around the beak and eyes. Took a lot of fiddeling and didn't come out too well. Also made me forget to heat the tail, so it popped off later in the kiln. Oh well ...

Bird no.5 An actual bird, the Vermillion Flycatcher. Mine is a bit chubby, but I like it all the same. The black line on his face was supposed to go through the eye and through the beak, but as red turns black when hot, it was not easy to see where the colours met. Trying to tell the to colours apart, I got it too hot and the line flowed downwards. An ekstra dot of red on the top of the head pushed the line too.

This final bird we made is the Musvit. I am very pleased with how it came out. See how the head is round with an angle at the back and a full melt-in at the front? It has a good size too, compared to the body. See the half-circle marking on the cheek, and the eyes properly indented? And it has a line of black running down the chest and some white under the tail.

The wings need work in the shape and thickness, but they have a lighter line across on the upper part, and a coating of striated stringer (which I made myself, Woot!) on the 2 lower wing layers. It is on the topside of the tail too.

After only 5 sparrow shaped birds ever, I'd like to declare it a success. Yay! :)

This last bird is not made by me. It is made by Kim Fields herself, and now resides in my glass collection. Isn't it fabulous? :)

All in all I have to say it was a wonderful experience. Being in a room full of hyper-focused people is a special feeling, and I am very pleased I got to be a part of this class.
Thank you to all involved.

Kim Fields: Take Flight Class, at Bifrost Copenhagen

Oh my! Did I ever have the best two days with Kim Fields and the other students over at Bifrost Studio Glas. Oh yes :)

I almost didn't make it, being very ill om monday. I was in bed all day and couldn't eat a thing. I thought there were no way I could be at the class I had looked forward to for months.
Tuesday morning I felt somewhat better, though still doubting I could last the full day, but off I went with determination. And lo and behold, the excitement of the class and the good food we got (+ a little bit of coca cola) kept me on my feet all day. Yay!

The only birds I have made before this course has been tiny one-colour spacers with a dot-head, tail and little squished dots for wings. They are all cute and fine for earrings, and where actually the first thing I made back in 2007 when I got my torch and tools.

Now however, I feel I can move on to bigger and better, and since I love to sculpt my lampwork, this class seemed like just the thing for me. And it was! I had a blast :)



Kim Fields making a fabulous and complex Toucan

And I learned so much from Kim!
Sculpting colourful birds is nothing like sculpting goddesses. You have to be very precise with the heating or you'll loose definition on the previous steps. I learned about precision heating, laying down lines and not have them move while melting in, softening the base, but not loose the shape of little dots on top, pulling tiny dots into shapes with the tip of a stringer ... I even made my very first cane. Hooray!
It was simply a fabulous class, and I am so happy I got to go after all. 



This is the Toucan, finished but for the final turn of the head

We, the students, did not make a Toucan, the beak alone took half an hour to make, but it was interesting to watch the process, in case we should feel adventurous later at home :)

We did get to make this one below. I don't know the name in english, but Kim had spottet it out her window in the morning, and it is one of the sweetest local birds I know of. It was the last one we all made, complete with face- and chestmarkings, and 3 layers of double layered wings, using the striated cane we made ourselves.
I was very pleased with my version of this one as it went into the kiln, and I hope I will be when it comes out too. I look forward to getting my birds from day 2 in the mail, so I can post them all together.


The danish name for this bird is Musvit

Many, many thanks to Kim for coming all this way to teach us, and to Jette for arranging it and for taking so good care of us while we got lost in colours and shapes and flames.
Thank you!!!

Fish- and Mandalabeads

It seems that over the summer I have developed a fondness for large beads. Usually I don't wear large or colourful jewelry, but lately I have been. Still within my prefered somewhat muted colour palette, but for me these are very flashy. 

First I made fish beads like this one:

I even finished up 2 as necklaces, for Karin Castens sea/mermaid themed exhibition in august. This is not my biggest fish, but it will fill the center of your palm up nicely. This one and his purple/mintygreen friend can still be found at Castens on Holbergsgade 19a.

Then I happened to come across Kristina Logans video clip of her making her wonderful disc-shaped beads, and I had to try that too.
Mandala beads, a lovely shape to fondle. Mine with large holes and lots of texture.

 

Do not drop on tiled floor!
This one, unfortunately, is no more :(

 

I have ordered silk ribbons for these circular goodies, and they will be necklaces too shortly. While I wait I will see what fun variations I can come up with. Ideas are swirling :)

Lene

Back from a Beadiful weekend (part II)

Sunday, the second day of the event, is open for the public. From 10am to 5pm there are demos to watch, you can try making your own bead, there is a beadcontest to vote for, both Ravstedhus and Ombos are open for business, and finally, there is the bead fair, full of awesomeness to bring home.

Here is my booth

and here is Martina Schlemminger's, which was next to mine. I could use some more colour, don't you think?

Here is a picture of some lampworkers looking at the contest beads. The theme was 'Eventyr', the danish word for fairytale. It also means adventure, so there is room for interpretation :)

And here are the winning beads!
First place goes to Connie Sørensen for the Sleeping Beauty Castle
Second place goes to my three Tinderbox Dogs (woohoo!!)
and the shared Third place goes to Bente Clausen's Goddess and Matina Schlemminger's Dragonhead.
Hooray, Congratulations all around! :)

You can see all the (13) participating beads at Brittas Blog Pibbs. She has made an extensive account of the weekend, 4 posts long: post 1, post 2, post 3 and post 4. Go have a look, there's a ton of pictures :)

Spending a whole day looking at beads can make you fall in love. This year I brought home this fun and colourful mushroom from Martina and the fabulous glass pen below. And I didn't need a full day, it was love at first sight :)

Glorious, aren't they? And now I just need some ink. Martina had brought some, but it never crossed my mind that I would need that too. I just loved the glass as it was. Yum!

Then I went shopping for materials. I got some glass, light ivory, sea colours and pinks, and also some tubing so I can try the blowing technique we saw saturday night.

And some leather cord necklaces, some copper wire for leaves probably, and 3 magnetic locks with inlays, so I can make either bracelets or necklaces on wire. Can you believe I have never made a beaded bracelet?

I also got 3 large neckdisplays and a hollow mandrel with a blowhole for hollow beads.
Yup, definately a great weekend :)

Lene

Back from a Beadiful weekend (part I)

Hooray! What a wonderful weekend :)

It is such a treat to be able to visit the one and only annual lampwork event of the country. This was the third year I got to visit the lovely south of Jutland and spend a full two days on nothing but lampwork.

Beautiful clouds over the flat land of southern Jutland

The first day, saturday, is for members of 'Foreningen Danske Glasperler' only.

We started out with Thomas Risom, who told us about glass beads from the times of the vikings and the first glass bead maker in Denmark, located in Ribe. He was very entertaining, and I enjoyed hearing him speak even if ancient beads doesn't interest me much.

Later he showed us the bead volcano he had made himself from clay, sand and horse droppings. It does not go as hot as our torches, but it goes up to about 900 C which is enough to round out the beads. You can see more pictures of his process at his vikingblog.

Thomas and Jesper working the bead volcano

Then Jytte Petersen showed us how she makes the decorative pins, known in Denmark as 'nipsenåle'. I was looking forward to this because I have made a few of them myself.
Jytte makes them in the old fashioned style. They are quite adorable, tiny little creatures, all with a very happy body language.

Jytte Petersen making a bird pin



Grooming bird, seahorse, horse, elephant and a happy, happy pig :)
The seahorse and the elephant went home with me,
along with another seahorse and a simple bird


Later Martina Schlemminger showed us her mixed colour beads. The green/yellow combination is very popular in Germany this year.



Martina Schlemminger spinning a bead




Martinas Bead Candy, Yum!

 and Christiane Strauss of Ombos showed the chrysantemum bead.



Christiane Strauss making a chrysantemum bead

In the afternoon Tom Lundsten showed us the process of making a beadstamp. He is working on making a product for Ravstedhus, where you can mail off a drawing and get it made into a brass stamp. Exciting!

After dinner at the local Inn, we went back to hear from Tina Moeslund. She showed her set-up for engraving beads and also a super easy way to center a 1 wire bracelet into a 5mm magnetic clasp. It involves a centering bit which also makes it very easy to get a very secure and tight closure.

Finally to end a wonderful day, Jens Christian Kondrup blew hollow beads from blobs of molten soft glass, and it didn't even crack from cooling off in open air. I got myself a couple of tubes so I can try this at home :)

Phew. You can certainly learn and experience a lot in just one day!
I only got a little bit lost on the way back to my B&B :)

More pics in my next post, including the contest beads ...

My first implosions!

Ooh did I ever have fun getting up at 3 a.m. on friday to torch before work!
Thursday evening I had re-discovered the YouTube channel of Florin Voicu. He may only have postet 5 videos, but the how-tos are making me happy.

I had first seen the one with the spider, but as he says in the beginning, it is probably best to start with something simpler if you haven't made an implosion before. So I looked at his flower tut too and made my own mix of the two flowers.

The two first ones are trash, but this is no. 4. It has tree rows of 5 blue petals and 3 white stamens for the pollen in the center.

Here is a sideview, and yeah, I know it is completely wonky, but that was not part of the challenge this time. Just to implode.

This is no. 3. I thought it looked kind of okay, so I attached a length of clear rod to it and voilá, I have a wonky hairstick :)

I wasn't sure the rod would survive coming from room temperature and getting thrown into 520 Celsius, but it did. Yay! This one has 2 rows of 4 petals, and the center stamen of 3 dots.

And speaking of pollen, check out the beauty of the little buggers over at wikipedia :)

This was so much fun I may have to get myself a marble mould. That infinite rim mould sounds awfully alluring right now ...

Love,
Lene

'My' new Gallery (part II)

I love discovering artists I haven't seen before, and I wasn't dissapointed at 'Galleriet Hornbæk'.

On the walls of the very first room of the gallery I noticed this fascinating piece by Lennart Forup

There are several pieces of his around the gallery, like these odd paintings on wood



This beautifully calm and peaceful angel painting by Maj Trolle is so lovely

I am impressed that people still make marble statues. This is right inside the door and made by Jerry Adder, who also made the painting below

Isn't art great? :)


Love,
Lene

PS: one pendant has already sold, Yay! :)

'My' new gallery! (part I)

This past friday was the opening day of a new gallery, 'Galleriet Hornbæk', in ... Hornbæk ;)

Last weekend I delivered 6 of my big ladies and an assortment of pendants to the owner, Susanne Risom, and on friday I went to the opening. It was great to see my work in the gallery among all the art. 

This is the front of the shop. It is only a window and a door wide, but inside it stretches through 3 rooms en suite, all the way to the back of the building.

Here is a window on the side wall, full of glass, ceramic bowls, bronze animals and bottlestoppers, and also some of my ladies.

This is the jewellery displaybox holding the rest of my glass, next to wild fairytale jewellery by Pernille Mouritzen.

You can see more pictures of art by other artists at Susanne's website: http://www.risom.dk/  and I'll post some of the ones I found interesting in my next post.

Love,
Lene

Hillerød Kunstdage 2012, Saturday

The second day of the show has ended, and today I will show you a couple of favorites of mine, from the participating Amio shops.

This fabulous necklace and the beautiful trees are from Smykkeunivers.
I should have made closeups, that necklace is soo delicious. It is made from thousands of tiny seed beads and other little beads, it is firm and has a lovely weight, which is something I apreciate as quality in such a piece.

She also makes seed bead rope necklaces, beaded beads and also less involved pieces, all with good materials and beautiful elegant aesthetics.

Brightly colourful and large feather earrings from Tjekija Design.
They might be a bit much for me to actually wear, but I love them!

She also makes bracelets in reindeer skin with braided patterns of metal, leather and beads on them. Now this I can wear easily, so I brought this one home with me :) Check out her more blingy and colourful versions too.



And finally, little glass houses from Meng Design (sorry, I can't find her shoplink). Check out the millefiori for garden flowers. I am sure others have thought of it too, but I rarely look closely into fusing, so this is a first to me. Brilliant :)

It was a good day, and I look forward to tomorrow :)

Love,
Lene

Thing-a-day: Feb. 4 (Chinese Button Knot)

Here it is again that flowery bead. What did I do you ask?
Well, I made it ready for wearing, by stringing it on a leather cord. I'm not much into ordinary knots, it's not really jewelry-worthy I think, så I made this nifty chinese button knot instead.
It looks fancy and symetrical, and it's not that hard to do. This is the tut I have been using.



So for today - a knot.

P~

Facebook anyone?

Oh great! Yet another time-sucking vortex I can keep refreshing all day long :)
Well, I have made a profile on facebook. It's a glass related profile, and I am keeping my vampires on my personal (and in Danish) profile, so this one is nice and clean (so far), and a 'business' type thing.
This is it: profusion. I also made a 'page' for it which is here. So if anybody would like to friend me I would be happy to add you. And take a look at my events, even if you can't attend, just because I have them :)

P~

I feel used! :)

Yes, somebody has used a bead of mine in a piece of jewelry and it's looking great!
I don't usually go around checking up on my buyers, but Archaicdesign was my very first customer on Etsy, and therefore a special case. Once in a while I will swing by her shop and have a peak at her pieces, especially her wonderful bracelets. You can just look at them and know they will last you a lifetime. All that solid fat sterling wire - it's simply delicious :)

Thank you Susan, for the use of your picture.

P~

Glass Art! Can't live without it :)

Okay, so when I said I were completely off international shopping, that of course does not include Etsy. Etsy is my special friend and I have shopped again.

This time from the long time admired AngelinaBeadalina. Angela makes amazingly large pieces for a lampworker, and though not all of her work appeals to me, I am frequently blown away by her organic flowing shapes. I thought about it and found that the faces she make are too chunky for me, but the long slender women figures are so what I want to see. Then going through her gallery I realized I rather love some of her faces too, like this one, or this. So overall, a most definate thumbs up :)
Now the thing is, she is holding a ridiculous sale of $25 a piece for 25 items in 25 days. I don't know how long is left, it can't be much, but that is not a sale, it's a give-away! And I lucked out and checked her shop at just the right time. I am now the happy owner of 'Essence of a Woman'. I saw this piece posted online before, and imediately loved the strong, happy, free shape of this dancing goddess. How can you not? She is just glorious.


Thank you Angela, for the use of your beautiful picture

Apparently I can't hold on to money when I've got them. However if I don't have any to use for fun and frivolity, then I can. It all works out nicely, and I'd like to propose a toast: To unexpected Tax Returns, Hoopla! :)

I do hope the postal service will cooperate this time, because I can't wait to get my mail !!!

P~
(Glass Art Collector, Yay!)