Flutterby Sky - Fremen

The question is - Have I ever experienced Fremen pitting? The answer, for me at least is no. In the course of experimenting though I did fall in love with how soft and beautiful Fremen looks when encased with Messy Clear and then acid etched.

This bead is etched encased Freeman tab with butterfly Murrini by Ryan Turner.

I found that I had to treat Fremen very harshly by superheating for a prolonged period of time to get any sign of the surface sparkles and fizz that tells me the glass is boiling. Unlike with Pulsar though, there is no sign of surface pitting on my beads once they have cooled. Fremen is a wonderfully well behaved glass when I work it in a cool flame.

Tab focal with moth murrini by Charlotte Dakin-Norris.

Fremen is described as an opaque sky blue - perhaps this is why I couldn't resist teaming it with fluterby murrini. The dreamy look of these beads means that encasing and etching Fremen is a combination I am sure to come back to over and over again.



Jolene x
Kitzbitz

Messy testing - a few bit-some thoughts on Pulsar

My daughter Ruby says bit-some a lot at the minute, a bit-some Peppa Pig, a bit-some cuppee tea.....here are my bit-some thoughts on Pulsar.

Pulsar has a reputation for pitting. I have tested glass from two different batches and found that both did pit when I worked with them.

I tend to work fairly hot and it seems that Pulsar cannot stand up to prolonged heating in an intense flame without it boiling and bubbling up. This is what causes the pitting and tiny holes on the surface of some of my beads. To get the best from this beautiful transparent blue glass I found that I needed to melt Pulsar more slowly, turning my torch down a bit and working in the cooler tip of the flame. I think that Pulsar looks beautiful with blue highlight mica.


Pulsar also seems to be sensitive to a slightly reducing (propane rich) flame. This little spacer bead has a rusty/terracotta surface discoloration. I normally associate this sort of reaction to the chemistry of the flame to opaque rather than transparent colours.

Mostly though I think that Pulsar is made to be etched - it puts me in mind of tumbled seaglass and the ground surface of antique cobalt glass apothecary jar stoppers.

Jolene x
Kitzbitz

Blue Sangre

I have tested glass from three different batches of CiM Sangre, making a series of rough spacer beads in various different flame chemistry conditions, oxygen rich, neutral, slightly reducing and a strong orange reduction flame. The spacers formed in the reduction flame are the only ones to show any signs of turning blue at all – and then only in small patches.

None of these spacers have been struck, you can clearly see the transparent yellow areas on many of these beads which is what Sangre looks like before you reheat it to strike to red. I find though that Sangre does strike for me fully and evenly the first time that I bring it back to the flame. The picture to the left was taken indoors under artificial lighting and the glass looks darker, like toffee apple caramel rather than the vibrant and juicy red that it's true transparent shade. The image below was taken indoors also but is lit with a daylight lamp (10,000 lux) and looks much closer to true colour.

Next I made a large focal sized bead, using just Sangre, in a strong reduction flame. The results were very interesting; streaks of light grey/blue are clearly visible on the bead after kiln annealing. This bead is also totally opaque, the longer working and repeated striking has taken Sangre from unstruck two tone transparent and on to fully opaque which personally I like. It gives Sangre working properties unique in the 104 palette and is a very versatile glass





Jolene x
Kitzbitz

Stone Ground Vs. Opal Yellow

Using EDP, Copper Green, Turquoise and Gold Pink together is a classic and well known combination for zingy glass reactions. I want to see if Messy Color Stone Ground will play well with these colours too.

I decided to make simple dotty beads using Effetre handpulled Copper Green, Effetre Dark Turquoise with Cranberry Pink, Effetre Opal Yellow and Stone Ground

Dots, dots, dots

Each pair of beads in the picture above have been made to the same pattern. The only difference is that the beads in the left row use CiM Stone Ground; the beads in the right hand row use Effetre Opal Yellow.

It is easy to draw some direct comparisons between the working properties of these two glasses, having used them side by side in this way. It is very difficult to gauge the difference between the relative reactiveness of the two by simply looking at the beads side by side after annealing. Once I had mixed the two sets of beads together I couldn't tell which were which anymore at all.

* I found that Opal Yellow is softer and slightly quicker to melt than CiM Stone Ground. This for me means that when used a as a base bead, it is slightly less easy to control and gravity shape.
* My particular batch of Opal Yellow was fairly shocky whilst the Stone Ground was very well behaved when introduced to the flame.
* The batch of Opal Yellow that I am using is a fairly dark one (some batches of this handpulled glass can be considerably paler) but it is still notably lighter in shade than CiM Stone Ground.
* Stone Ground appeared to be a striking colour, moving from pale creamy to caramel/tan when I heated the beads from cool to melt in raised dots.
* The Opal Yellow remained consistently pale without any signs of being a striking colour at all.

I find it very difficult to get a regular supply of Effetre Handpulled Opal Yellow from any UK stockist. Encouraged by the results from my dot bead tests I wanted to see if Stone Ground would solve my supply problems for finding a reliable, neutral, reactive base glass for use with powdered glass.

The powder beads on the left are ones that I made over a base of Effetre Opal Yellow earlier in the year. The beads on the right are the result of last evening’s playtime - powdered glass over Stone ground. I am very pleased with the results over Stone Ground so far, the reactions I got are every bit as dark, rich and as intense as those with Opal Yellow.

Stone Ground

Jolene x
Kitzbitz

Striking Canyon

This focal is made from pure Canyon de Chelly, pressed with a wood grain effect texture plate and then burnished with fine silver leaf.

Wood grain effect focal with fine silver detail

This is a quite a large focal bead and I thought I might have trouble striking it to a constant colour all over but found that the only colour variations I can see are remnants of the silver leaf on the bead surface. The spacer beads have not been struck and make a surprisingly consistent match to the Effetre Opal Yellow twistie which wraps the complimenting Canyon/Maple tyre beads.

Wood grain effect focal with fine silver detail

I found that by warming this bead gently in the back of the flame after letting it become cool enough to be covered with the silver leaf allowed me to easily strike the Canyon de Chelly to its deeper shade.

Canyon de Chelly

Jolene x
Kitzbitz

Tuxedo Shimmer Stringer

Tuxedo can do such magical things when you throw silver and propane in the mix!

To create this shimmering iridescent effect I burnished some silver leaf on to a gather of Tuxedo and pulled stringer. Khaki was a fab choice as the base to decorate with my silvered Tuxedo stringer as I wanted to see how the silver would fume the Khaki and create a secondary reactive effect. Each bead has been wafted quickly through a reduction (propane rich) flame before just garaging to bring out the shimmering effects. The spacers are there as a comparison so that it easy to see the fumed areas on the Khaki glass caused by silver vapour fuming from the tiny fine silver droplets coating the tuxedo stringer.

Silvered Tuxedo stringer over Khaki

I wanted to try out silvered Tuxedo stringer on some other warm hued honey like colours next and so made these half and half Stone Ground/Maple rounds.

Silvered Tuxedo stringer over Stone Ground and Maple

Silvered Tuxedo stringer over Stone Ground and Maple

As you can see neither the Maple nor Stone Ground has been affected by the silver content of the stringer in any significant way. As before, each bead has been wafted quickly through a reduction flame before just garaging to bring out the shimmering effects.

Fumed Tuxedo/Silvered Tuxedo stringer

The small disc beads in the pic below have been fumed with fine silver in a fairly propane rich reduction flame - nothing happened until I turned the oxygen right down. I found that the results are a little flat, dull and inconstant for me after seeing the beautiful shimmers, silver droplets and hints of iridescence that I have been able to achieve with the silvered Tuxedo stringer.










The large oval bead in this picture is a Tuxedo base, with silvered Tuxedo stringer, wafted quickly through a reduction flame.

I am a little bit disappointed with the results of pure fuming over a plain base of Tuxedo, perhaps this is simply due to my inexperience with the fuming technique as there is definitely an evident reaction between fine silver and this glass. For me less is more when it comes to throwing silver at Tuxedo and so although I won't try fuming it again, I will definitely be making more silvered stringer.

Jolene x
Kitzbitz

Twistie eye candy

twists-blue, originally uploaded by kitzbitz art glass by Jolene.

I am getting the hang of blogging directly from Flickr - very handy, especially as I like my blog to be picture rich and not so very wordy. Here are some yum-scrum pics of my hand pulled twistie cane - bright and full of potential for lampwork bead beautifulness.

Kitzbitz

Lady Garden Beads

Lady Garden Beads, originally uploaded by kitzbitz art glass by Jolene.

It might seem just a little bit naughty – or perhaps even out and out attention seeking, to be taking a perfectly pretty handmade glass bead and giving it a vadge badge.
I love making these, exactly because they are cheeky and to some tasteless, but to me they empower. Wear a Yoni with pride I say. I think that being 7 months pregnant has some part to play in this outspokenness – so whatever you call yours here are some of mine.

Kitzbitz

Lost in Space

Lost-in-space-3
Originally uploaded by kitzbitz art glass by Jolene

The kiln fairy left me this a couple of weeks ago - Lost in Space featuring a rocket murrini by Charlotte Dakin-Norris of Big Bang Beads

I gave it as a gift to my neighbours sisters son (who is 6) as he had big big eyes when he saw it. I have had it on good authority since that he sleeps with it under his pillow. I don't think a bead gets to be more treasured than that!

A couple of shiny ones

I have had a bit of a break from bead making, and come back to it with all the more passion because of the rest. These are the first beads I have made in over two months - using techniques that I learnt in my master class with Andrea Guarino in April this year.



CiM Simply Berry with Double Helix Aurae and some complex twistie made with Effetre Opal Yellow. I have also made the Murrini with these three glasses.



I cannot be sure as to the name of this lush, green silver rich reduction glass, tho I suspect it is GT Glassworks Green Envy. This class turned up in my studio as part of job lot and I have been hoarding it because I love it so much.

I thought I would feel rusty - but the love of melting glass made me forget I had ever been away!

Kitzbitz

New Fritz on the Block

Showing my age here with the title of this post!

Anyhoo here they are, my newest frit blends, Smokestack and Orange Grove, just listed on Etsy today Frit N Chips





You can also find the full range of frit and Kitzbitz fritblends Kitzbitz Art Glass

Thanks for looking, Jo x

Frit N Chips - Murrini Blends new on Etsy

I have begun to add some "chips" to my lampwork supplies store on Etsy today.
These chips are cut my very own handpulled starburst murrini cane.

Princess is a quirky blend of pinks and red, very delicate and graphic.

Oranges and Lemons blend contains rare Vetrofond odd lot glass,
the now sought after Pineapple and Tangerine Sparkles.

Slice of Lime is my personal fave of all three blends just listed, so fresh and juicy!

You can find these pretty chips and more at Frit N Chips
ad my handmade glass beads at Kitzbitz

Artist's Spotlight - Larissa Symbouras

Wow........I have never, ever wanted to smell beer in the morning before, but this soap appeals to the beer snob in me too.



Larissa's Blog is eloquent, humorous, beautiful and has some of the most enticing product photography I think I have ever seen. Can you tell that I have a serious handmade soap fetish!

Check this out! Now this is the kind of wakeup call that I like the look of! Cafe Mocha Scrub...yumyumyumyummy



Larissa makes great stuff for guys too, check out this superb Clean Cut Saving soap in the Reef Botanicals artfire shop.



You can find more about what is hot and new from Reef Botanicals on twitter and Facebook

Yummy Double Helix Shards!

I have just launched my new lampwork supplies shop on Etsy, Frit N Chips where I will be selling my handmade CoE 104 glasswork for bead making and CoE 96 furnace glass frit.



Yesterday I loaded up the shop with delicious Double Helix reduction glass shards. They are very easy to use, apply to the warm surface of you glass bead in a neutral flame, and simply waft your bead through a reduction flame to get the beautiful simmer and shine and magic from these spectacular glasses.

Psyche Shards

Aurae Shards

Trition Shards

Jo x