The Yin/Yang or Goddess/God bead

Last year I made a bead for the competition at the annual beadmakers meet-up in Denmark in june. The theme was 'Contrasts' and my bead was a double body of a male and a female in black and white. (I wrote about it here, and I came in second, Wee! :)

Last week I had an urge to take up the design again. I really like the idea of it, but there are a couple of things that could be improved on to make my idea fully bloom.

First of all, last year I got the colours wrong. And it's not because I didn't check and google to see which colour is male and which is female. I did, then went to my workshop and promptly used black for the male and white for the female. 4 times in a row ...
This time I have it right, and I have to say it 'feels' right too, when I look at it. Sweet. 

Please click the photo to see it properly

The first 4 beads I made last year, they kind of have a 'let's stick these two bodies together'-look, and that is not what I am going for. I want the bodies to be connected, united into one piece, though still two distinct parts. I rather like my solution of a swirl on either side of the legs, both in the same direction, tying the colours together.

I will keep working on this design, there are a few more things I'd like to incorporate before it looks like the bead inside my mind, but this one came out great. I am very pleased with both bodies, and seeing this lady in black makes me want to use black more often in my Goddesses.

There's a new Etsy in town! Opening SALE!

Well, new might be a bit of a stretch, but after a 4½ year break it feels new to me.
I've been rewriting  texts, updating postage and prices, writting new item descriptions, shoting new photos of new pieces - yep, it feels new to me :)

Now that I am up to 19 items in my shop, and with more on the way, I am ready to tell it to the world. Woot! Play the fanfares and start celebrating,

Profusion Art Glass is back at Etsy.com!

And why not start with a SALE?
Starting now, and for the rest of February, write the code '20off022014' (that's alphanumeric for: 20% off, february 2014) in the coupon box when checking out and get 20% off any and all items!!

Below are a few pictures of fresh items in my Etsy shop, or you can just go directly to the shop and see everything at once.

Remember, the code goes invalid when March begins, so go have a look now!

Ooff! I'm excited! :)

Light vs. Dark

Effetre Ivory, my favourite glass to use. The colour is a delicious cream, and the softness is just right for my sculpting.

While I prefer the light version for my ladies, I realise that the dark has its charm too. I have run out of my regular Light (as the load of Light I had bought, is in fact much darker), and I thought I would give the Darker version a go. Here is a pic of one lady in each of the Ivories.

The colour difference is more pronounced in real life, but this clearly shows the curdling effect of the Dark Ivory on the left, and the smoother creamyness of the Light on the right.

It is not just a colour difference though, as the surface of the two are different too. The Light is as smooth as the colour looks, the Dark has a slight texture to it, just as the rods used have a little and more texture.

The Ivories are famous for their reaction with silver, and while I love the rich caramel brown I get from fuming the Light Ivory, I think it is time I start exploring the possibilities of the Dark.

Love,
Lene

A prototype

Yes! This week I finally got myself in bed early enough one night, to get up again at 03 a.m. to torch. It did rather ruin the next 3 days for me in terms of lost energy, but ... I got to make these

It's a pair of Goddess earrings, and they were more difficult to make than I had thought they would be. I had time for just one more before the alarmclock told me it was time to wake the family. She's a bit larger and should probably be a pendant instead of an earring.

I'm very pleased to have arms, legs and a head on these, but - they are not quite what I had expected. I'm not quite sure what I did infact expect, I have no clear image in my head of what I wanted them to be like, but this isn't exactly it.

I'll have to try and find out what my nebulous idea really is so I can make that next time I get to torch. I think perhaps rounder, more of a caricature. If I could make a mix of a pod-shape and a woman, or perhaps a marble that has indentations hinting of a human form ...
I already have made pendants which start out as a drop and end as a goddess. No arms, legs or head though, but it shouldn't be impossible to start with a marble instead.

Yup, that's my plan.
Lene

Tax Time

This week, or at least a fair bit of it was spent bookkeeping, so I could register my VAT, so here is a lovely picture of my favourite pendants, since a picture of my receipts is probably not so much fun. I do love it when the numbers line up perfectly in the end though :)

Have a great week :)
Lene

Oh my Goddess!

This past week were all about the Goddesses.

Not only did I post 4 Goddess pendants to my shop at Amio.dk, like this one:


The Lady of the Shapely Posterior :)



I also got to send off this beauty halfway across the country, to Marslev on Fyn.



Please click the picture to fully apreciate her gorgeous slender curves

This is one of my new ladies, the largest bunch I have made until now, and her new owner is very pleased. I am so happy that I could make that happen. It is my mission after all, to spread the joy of lovely curves, captured in glass.

This week I will post a couple of these beauties to my shop, and I hope to get in a bit of torchtime too. I have a Goddess project I am quite eager to create. But - it's a secret for now, and I'm not telling ;)

Have a beautiful week,

Lene

KM&V Countdown - Week 13

Still vacationing and loving it :)

This week I have been grating all the rough edges off a bunch of these metal cubes I use as base for my larger ladies.


When I get them they have sharp edges and pointy corners, and are somewhat unpleasant. Now they are all smooth and nice to touch. It is important to me that all parts are a pleasure, and as a bonus they will not scratch the surface you place them on (unless you make an effort), Yay!

I hope you are enjoying the summer where you are :)
P~

New 'Things'

The last couple of days I have been working on my bookkeeping which is due by thursday. It is not really a 'thing', so I can't show it of here, and so I took a few days off from the 'thing'.
I did get a couple of hours of torchtime in on sunday though, and here is some of what I made.

A goddess, nice and slender, and big! It's been a while since I made one last, and I were surprised to see that she is very close to the size of my largest ever goddess. Which is nice since I want to go bigger.


A purple leaf pendant bead, like the one I sold at Valdemar Slot Christmas Market.


And two tops for plantsticks. They would be lovely pendants, but they are huge!


Then I decided to end the day with another goddess. Unfortunately I forgot to keep her heated while fiddling with the neck and shoulder area, and she exploded :/ If you can use a broken goddess do let me know and I'll send her to you. Something mosaic perhaps? She is complete except that she has no nipples. It is the very last thing I do when making a goddess, and the only thing undone on her. And she is not annealed. (ETA: the broken Goddess is on her way to a good home)



P~

Bottoms!

Thing-a-day: Feb. 25 (Beads & Sculptures)

New beads!


All made yesterday. This is what I usually make in a productive week (or two).
I could so use more days off ...

P~

Thing-a-day: Feb. 14 (Glass Art Sculptures)

Maybe not a forrest quite yet, but it's a beginning.
These aren't glued, just cut and ready to be.



P~

I made pendants

And I love them!
It is so great to see a finished product, even if fondeling loose beads is a joy in itself :)
I have to say, gluing in the sterling bails was not as easy as I had thought. Things were either too slippery or too set. I used two-part epoxy, that dries up in 5 minutes, and I had to remix several times to get these done. Any tricks to it that I should know of? (Angela?)

Anyway, they came out great in the end, and I managed to get a couple of pics of them too, in the last rays of sun for the day. Here we go:






These are all I have for now, as I had only bought 10 bails. I need to order more right now. They are brilliant!
Now the rubber cords I have been talking about - that is an entirely different story. I think I may need to order a lot of sterling chains instead :/

P~

Angel in progress

I just made a little post in the 'Creative Scandinavians Blog', about this lovely lady:


Wings are new to me, but I like it :)

P~

Bead Pictures!

Well, here we go :)
First, the shapes that will live after being cooled down in my new Japanese annealing bubbles, even when quite large. The ones on the right are the ones that look like Sue's ATC.


Next - dots.
Love those plunged bubbles.


My newly discovered love - drop beads. I will glue a bail into the hole and they will be quite nifty. Some are based on Ivory,


some on nice swirly odd lots from Vetrofond.


Some of them have been shaped further.


These ladies are all made with just a hole at the top. I look much forward to seeing one finished and on a chain. I have only silver bails, so I suppose I should get some sterling chains, though a black rubber cord would be lovely too.
The 3 ivories in the top row are the angel experiment I did, the 'baby-arm' godesses. I have already made a better one, but I don't think it would hold up to being a pendant, so I'll experiment further on making the wings more solid.


That's all for now.

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!)

Goddess Galore: the Artful Nude

One of the reasons I began lampworking in the first place, after initially having looked at about a million lampwork beads, was this: The awe-inspirering beads of the incredibly talented Teresa Laliberté of Lavendercreek

(Thank you Teresa , for letting me use your picture :)

When I first saw her work, my jaw dropped. I went through every picture of hers that I could find, particularly here
At first I thought these ladies were little statuettes, and I were amazed to find out all this detail were actually crammed into a much smaller space. They were beads, Ladies and Gentlemen, and so I were firmly bitten by the BeadBug!
Once I had my own setup, of course I had to try my newbie-hands at making goddesses. I did get the likeness of a woman out of it (sort of) and I were so thrilled. Now I see that they were not so hot, and that I have learnt a lot in the year I have been making beads. These are the stages I have gone through



Ah yes, much better now. I can't wait to see where I will be in another years time :)

Other goddess makers well worth a mentioning:
Rachelle, who also makes guys.
J C Herrell, goddesses with glitz
Ellyloo, who makes some real cute tiny ones with wings
Angelinabeadalina, who makes strange and intriguing female sculptures
and Becky Casady, from a recent search, who works in polymer clay, both beads and sculptures.

Go visit all of them, this is beautiful stuff. It is nice to see that there are so many ways to do a Goddess Bead, even if the basic idea is the same.

P~