Coaxing Color from Terranova and Luna

I’m continuing to practice with Terranova and Luna, the two new glasses from Double Helix. I’m finding that Terranova gets brighter color when it comes in contact with silver foil. I’ve used this technique in a set I made recently, and I’m really happy with the results. The Terranova turned light blue and green in the places where the stringer ran across the silver foil. They’re done on a base of Opal Yellow:

Most of my practice time has been spent with Terranova, though I’m moving now into beads that combine Luna and Terranova. In the bead below, I’ve mixed Luna and Terranova together in a stringer and applied it to a base of pure Luna. This bead was my first attempt at that technique. Jed from Double Helix mentioned that mixing the two glasses would produce a color similar to the old Terra. I’m not having that kind of luck so far, but here’s a sample bead:

Like with any new glass or technique, it takes practice and trial and error until you get that breakthrough ‘aha!’ moment. Yesterday I did some more experimenting with mixed Luna and Terranova, and I am starting to get better results. I don’t have photos of those beads yet to show you, but they came out a little darker than the bead above. I think that’s because I’m getting more color striking to occur within the glass, as I’m figuring out the level of heat and the best cycle of heating/cooling to use. I do like the honey and red colors I got out of the bead above, though.

Apparently Jed has made a new batch of old Terra, which I’m really looking forward to. Until then, back to the bead bench for a little more blood, sweat and tears! In a good way!

Luna and Terranova

I’m a big fan of Double Helix glass and use many of their colors in my beads. One of my recent beadmaking challenges was learning to use their Terra glass. I’d finally practiced with it enough that I was getting good consistent color, and I was loving the bead sets I made with it. Terra had become my favorite glass.

I now have only two 3-inch pieces of Terra left on my bench! I tried ordering more last month but was sad to hear that Double Helix had discontinued making it. Instead they’ve come out with two new silvered glasses, “Terranova” and “Luna.” I ordered a 1/4 pound of each to try them out.

So far I’m finding them tricky to strike, but then Terra was really difficult in the beginning too. Since I’ve practiced so much with Terra, I now have a little bit better idea how to strike color with these new glasses but it’s still going to take practice. Here are my very first experimental beads, first the Luna:

And the Terranova:

The large button focal is Terranova and Luna swirled together and encased. The white speckles on the beads are silver deposits that are part of the color of this glass. …okay and probably some dust too

I’ve made some more beads with Terranova since these photos were taken. I can understand now that I had not been getting the glass hot enough in these practice beads, and so the range of color is not as broad as it could be. The glass didn’t reach a good striking temperature, mostly because I’m used to working cool. Still, the translucent honey-amber color of the Luna is nice, and you can see more color in the Terranova beads when you look at them in the sunlight.

The color is not bad for a start, but the beads I made yesterday with Terranova really blow these practice beads out of the water. I’ll show photos of them in my next post.

By the way, my main inspiration to keep practicing with Terranova and Luna is that Double Helix has offered to make the old Terra again if we can make these new glasses “sing.”
Yay!!!

Back to the torch!
Have a great day everyone!

Learning to Make Disk Beads

My latest challenge has been learning to make disk beads. The shape looks simple at first, yet (for me anyway) the disk shape is taking a lot practice to master. I’ve made hundreds of disk beads over the past month or two, and I think I’m only beginning to get the hang of it!

Here’s one of my recent sets. I’ve started by making chunky disks which are easier for me than the really thin ones. I love fall colors, so I’ve blended lots of earth-tones together in one set:

The challenge with making disk beads starts with winding a very narrow “footprint” of glass onto the mandrel. I have to touch only the very tip of the molten end of the rod onto the mandrel when I start winding. If I can do that, then the bead is more likely to stay thin. Also, a wide footprint can leave sharp edges around the holes.

If I’ve made a nice narrow footprint, and managed to wind on more glass as evenly as I can, the next challenge is to keep the disk shape. The bead tends to collapse on itself and become wider as it’s heated.

There are a few techniques I’ve been using to keep the shape upright and narrow. One is running the edges of the bead along the flat side of my marver, which cools the glass and helps it keep its shape. I also use my mini-mashers and run them around the bead (very lightly so they don’t leave dents in the glass).

Even with these techniques I often end up with a bead that does not have a round disk shape. It’s more like a wonky square or triangular disk! I’ve decided that’s okay if I’m going for an organic look, yet I’d love to be able to make a nice round disk shape like a coin. Sometimes I have to add bits of glass on one side of the disk or the other to try and round it out. A little trick I’ve discovered is to lightly heat the edge of the disk that’s too high, and very gently use a cool rod to pull the hot glass towards the side that’s too low.

Here is another set I’ve made recently, this one is etched:

This is my latest disk set, made from Double Helix’s “Nyx” glass. I’m giving thin, textured disks a try. They’re not “perfectly round” but I think the funky look suits them:

I’ve always loved the beads made by our resident “Disk Queen” here on Watch Me Create, Kerry Bogert. Her beads are a big part of what inspired me to give disks a try. Nothing like trying something to gain a vast appreciation for the skill involved!

I think I’m obsessed with disk beads now. Back to the torch!

Japanese Kinari Glass

It’s always an adventure trying a new brand of glass. It can be fun, frustrating and challenging. It takes practice to learn how a new kind of glass reacts to the flame and to other colors and metal foils. I’ve really come to love some of the colors from ASK104, Messy Color, and Double Helix now that I’ve worked with them for a while.

Feeling adventurous again, I recently bought a sample pack of Japanese Kinari glass. The colors have a beautiful soft look, like Effetre Alabastro and Opalino glass. Most of the Kinari colors are in the purple-blue-green range and there aren’t any reds or yellows yet from what I’ve seen. Also, some of the transparent rods are very densely pigmented and look black. Because many of the Japanese-style beads use millefiori, I think the transparents are dense so that when the glass is pulled out to a thin cane it will still hold its color. Here is a photo of some of the normal-colored rods, they’re hand-pulled and some of them have an interesting texture:

Like the better-known Japanese Satake glass, Kinari is very, very soft (it melts like butter in the flame) and it has a COE in the 120’s. Because it’s so soft, some people say it should be used with a cooler torch like the Hot Head or the Japanese-style upright air-burning torch. I haven’t had a problem with it on my Minor burner as long as I keep the flame small. The glass is much softer than what I’m used to though, so it’s like learning how to make beads all over again.

I know the annealing schedule for Kinari is different from a 104 COE schedule, but I don’t know what the exact temperatures should be. I’m going to try the Satake schedule and see how that works. Since I haven’t programmed my kiln for Japanese glass yet, I’m just putting my experimental Kinari beads into a fiber blanket to cool and accepting the fact that they’re going to crack. Here are my first test beads:

The Kinari I’m using is version “C.” I’ve heard that the earlier versions “A” and “B” did not work well for people because some of the colors would devitrify. I’m finding occasional devit with some colors in my version “C” beads, but not too bad.

In the next post I write on Kinari glass, I hope to have some annealed beads to show you.

Air and Earth: Designing the Elements 2

I’ve made two more bead sets in my Elements series. In my last post I described making sets representing “Water” and “Fire,” and now I’m finishing up the series with “Air” and “Earth.”

For the “Air” set I used dichroic glass, (CIM) Cirrus, Vetrofond Pale Ocean Blue and some (CIM) Halong Bay stringers waving across the top. The CIM glasses have a beautiful opalescent, misty look to them. They have a cloud-like appearance that develops when the glass is repeatedly heated and cooled, which seemed like the perfect choice for an “Air” set.

For the “Earth” set, it was hard to decide which colors to use. I make a lot of organic-style beads and so there are a lot of earthy color combinations I like already. Ivory, green and brown seemed like the most logical colors to use, but I ended up choosing, (of course), my favorite color lately, Terra!

It has been fun to choose a theme such as “The Elements” and design a series around it.

My next challenge will be about using Japanese Kinari glass! Stay tuned!