Organics Help!

[Shelley]

Would some kind soul take pity on me and be good enough to do an organic tutorial?
No matter how hard I try, all I end up with are mud puddles....lol..
I am totally desperate to do some fabulous organic beads.

Thankyou in advance.
Shelley
Sydney, Australia.

[Lara]

Try an ivory bead with silver foil, then super heated.
Try an ivory bead with a thin (hair fine) stringer of intense black and super heated.


What colors are you using Shelley, some don't play well with others.

[Shelley]

Hi Lara!
I've tied all sorts of ivory/silver/intense black combinations, but can't get anything that looks remotely interesting... I really like beads that look like stone.. Any suggestions?

Shelley

[Cosmo]

I would try to find a copy of John Winter's video. He does a lot of beads that resemble rocks...

I took a class with Alethia Donathan at BeadFest on organics. I learned quite a bit. More than I can list here. When I find my handout I'll post a few tips that she gave us. A lot of it is using the right color combinations.

[SLY Creations]

Shelley, here is a thread I found in the technical forum. There is a lot of good information here Enjoy. http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2915&highlight=organic

[Ellen Black]

Hi Cindy Jenkins newest book Beads of Glass, has a few how to's in it for organic beads, plus alot of other techniques. Kim Affleck, and Kim Fields are two of them. www.hotheadglass.com

Ellen

[Lara]

Hi Lara!
I've tied all sorts of ivory/silver/intense black combinations, but can't get anything that looks remotely interesting... I really like beads that look like stone.. Any suggestions?

Shelley

I get the stone look with just silver leaf over ivory. Make sure you aren't using too much leaf. Do you have any photos of beads that you have made, we might be able to give more advise if you point our something you don't like.

[Shelley]

Thanks for all the suggestions... will follow up some of the ides & keep on trying. I have been using silver foil not leaf so perhaps that's my starting point.
I really really love what Paulette Insall (aka spiglass-studio) does.. her work is so amazing. If anyone has any idea how she does what she does... I only wish she did online tutorials (happy to pay you know!!).

Shelley

[glassjones]

Dear Shelley,

Most of my stuff is what I would describe as organic at the moment and I tend to use lots of ivory with silver foil and then twisty reactive stringers over it. I like vetrofond ivory (medium) the best. I make a base bead with the ivory then apply foil to most of the bead and burnish on. Then I burn it off but in the top part of the flame and don't overcook it. Next apply a stringer with reactive colors (copper green, turquoise, coral). I like my twisties to have both opaques and transparents to give them more dimension. I also dot some clear about here and there and make some swirls and stuff. And finally I usually reduce the silver at the end with a great big reduction flame. Here's an example and you can pm me if I can be of any help. ;) 6093

[shawnette]

Also, you will get much better effects if you are careful to use leaf and not foil! Also, don't cook too much with the silver on Ivory. Some people get beautiful stone effects with enamels. Kate Fowle's beach stones with tiny baracles come to mind.

Hi Kim,

I was told to use foil and not leaf because leaf is too thin and burns off too easily. No you've gone and confused me! (Not too hard to do, lol)

So anyway, please tell me why you say leaf, not foil. Thanks in advance!

[Homerboro]

Try some Boro....polychromatics.

Glass Alchemy: Lusters, Amazons, Chameleons...any silver based color. you will have NO problem getting an organic look.

Homer

[DawnT]

It depends on the effect you want. I like the effect I get from leaf as opposed to foil. I do not use it to get a "There is silver foil on this bead" look. I use it to change the color of the underlying glass and to get some subtle metallic. I am not usually fond of the little silver balls you get with foil when you burn it into the glass. To get metallic, just put your bead in a reducing flame at the end. Should bring a lot of of the silver back out after you have finished your bead..

Thanks for clarifying Kim I was curious about this too. I will have to get some leaf so I can experiment.

So my question along these lines is when I use ivory and silver as a base and then do the final heating after applying whatever to it it seems that the more heat I apply to it the more the silvered ivory spreads and seems to overtake my twistie or stringer decoration. Can anyone tell me what the cause of this is?

Gosh, I hope I'm not hijacking this thread - it just seemed relevant...sorry if I am 8-[ .

[DreamMuse]

Hey Dawn *Waves* I can't believe no one answered you yet.... I'll give it a try

It's my understanding that ivory eats some colors, so to speak *G* I don't think it's really the ivory and silver specifically, but the dark ivory itself. I've tried putting some various transparents on top of dark ivory, and if I heat it too long, the colors tend to sink into the ivory. (Or maybe the ivory bleeds over it.)

So, my advice is to heat your twisties or stringer until *just* flush and then stop. Any more, and you'll start to lose your colors, as you noticed.

[DawnT]

Thanks Disa! That's what I figured but thought I would ask just to be sure :waving: .

Hey Dawn *Waves* I can't believe no one answered you yet.... I'll give it a try

It's my understanding that ivory eats some colors, so to speak *G* I don't think it's really the ivory and silver specifically, but the dark ivory itself. I've tried putting some various transparents on top of dark ivory, and if I heat it too long, the colors tend to sink into the ivory. (Or maybe the ivory bleeds over it.)

So, my advice is to heat your twisties or stringer until *just* flush and then stop. Any more, and you'll start to lose your colors, as you noticed.

[SuzFromOz]

Here are some examples of what I have been making lately under the banner of organics - if this is anyhting like waht you have in mind, pm me and I will try to put together a tutorial.

Suz

[DreamMuse]

Those are gorgeous!! Great work!

[SuzFromOz]

Thanks!

Suz

[DawnT]

Those are beautiful Suz! =P~

[Leahk72]

I know this is a very very old topic but I played with it today and WOW I had fun. I will post a pic of what I ended up with later.

Thanks

Leah

[Lisi]

I know this is a very very old topic but I played with it today and WOW I had fun. I will post a pic of what I ended up with later.

Thanks

Leah

Leah,

Based on reading this thread today, I went ahead and threw together a quick tutorial on how I make my "Jewel Stones" beads. Go check it out, it's in another thread in Tutorials! :)

[midniteburner]

Hey Shelley, it's great to see you back!

If you make silvered ivory stringer out of silver leaf, you will see a softer look. The foil will produce a deeper (taupe) color.

Sara