PIC Added In This Time
Post was Too Long once I added in the pic and I corrected Many Spelling errors that were in the first post. Hope this helps some of you to show the Pic that went along with many of the the Tips.
Handpulled Expensive colors:
Take a rod of Moretti clear and make a base bead the shape you want. Then cover it with the handpulled expensive colors. Then you don’t waste the handpulled colors for the core of the bead that nobody will ever see. Use a transparent color to do this, because it is stiffer and will hold it's original shape better.
Cheater Encased Flowers:
The First flowers :
1: Use a transparent base bead, such as T-031(Pale emerald green). Any color pale or light transparent will work, however avoid clear, it has way too much scum and bubbles in it.
2: Next put on the green stringer for vines, (You can make a cane of about 4 different color greens and then encased the cane in transparent green. It is important to encase it in transparent green, as when green is heated too much, it can turn red and spread like crazy.) Make the green scroll work and use the ends of the stringer to make points and more vine looking.
2a: A little more about making the green cane. Take a rod of Pea Green, heat
up about an inch and a half of the rod, Not till it is molten but just
enough so you can swipe it with other colors and it doesn't crack. Then
take a stringer of Petroleum Green P- 218 and swipe it down the one and a
half inch of the Pea Green Rod. Make 4 even swipes around the rod, in a "x"
Then take a Nile Green P- 214 stringer and fill in, make swipes right next to
the Petroleum green swipes. You can also use Grass Green P-216. You will want
the Pea Green Rod covered in at least two other colors of Green.
*Note* You may have to go back in fill in swipe down the rod of the green
colors, so the whole rod is covered. You can also use Full length rods to do
the swipe with. It may be easier to use the stringers, but if stringers get
away from you use full rods, it will not matter. Next you will need to have a
Transparent Green, Any color Transparent Green will work. I use T-022 Medium
Grass Green. Swipe the Trans Green from the end of the Now colored Pea Green
rod down to the end of the swipes. Do this till you have covered all the
Pastel swipes you have made. Then cover the open end of the Pea Green rod
with the transparent and stick it to the end. It is easy to do this, if you
get a blob of glass heated up on the Trans Green rod, smash it flat on your
marver, and stick it to the end. Now the fun part. Heat up the cane you have
just made. Wait till it is molten and droopy take it out of the flame count
to 7 and begin to pull it out. You want the stringer to be pretty thin. This
is make a LONG stringer, so you will have enough for many flowers!
2b: Turn down your flame, and scroll on the green cane, it really
doesn't matter how or what it looks like. Leave it raised, until you have
many scrolls on the bead. Then as you melt it in, Take the end of your green
cane, and pull the scroll work out into points all over the place, push and
pull that green stringer on the bead, until it look like vines. Melt completely in and if needed now would be the time to reshape the bead. If you turn down the heat when you add the cane you will not distort the shape. Do not worry if it doesn't look exact, as you will find when the bead is done, that the "vines" will not stand out a whole lot. Using the colors in the cane as I have and adding the transparent color over the cane, on top of the transparent base bead, will give the vines a great look when it is done. Trust me on this one!
3. Keep your torch turned down for this part also. Next I added an opaque
color in sets of 4 dots all around the bead. In the case of the first flowers
pic, I used Periwinkle. Make them a little further apart then you think you
will want them to be. I make different sizes. l Make a large set first, then
smaller sets on each side of it. You can put your dots anywhere, don't be
concerned about where the vines are. Then I added Transparent Colbalt right
on top of the raised Periwinkle dots. you do not have to add another color on
top, and can make the first set of dots any color you wish.
*Note* I would not try colors like Dark Ivory, or Opal Yellow, as they run
too fast and will not give you sharp petals.
Melt in each flower one at a time, *Note* Good hint here, is to start with
the smallest flowers first, so they don't melt in while doing another larger
set of dots, flowers. Point the tip of your flame right into the center of
the flower.
If anybody is having a hard time with the placement of the 4-5 petals
another tip is to put a little dot the same color as the base bead down
first, then this will give you a guide as where to add the flower petals
around the small dot. When you melt the petals in the dot will disappear, as
it is the same color as your base bead.
4. I then poked the center of each flower, (i use a tungsten pick, you can
use a straight rake, a mandrel without bead release on it of course, anything
you can find that you can make a straight poke with) one at a time. When
they are all poked, I turn the torch back up and melted the poke in flat.
This brings the flower petals down towards the center. Tada that's it! I know
it may sound a little confusing at first, as I tried to give you as much
information as I could think of. Along with alternatives, so if you didn't
have what I used, you could find something else that would work.
You can if you wish poke with a stringer, or cane to get the stamen in the
center. Or you could NOT melt the center in back flush with the bead, and
instead put a small dot of clear, giving you a bubble in the center, like the
first pic I posted.
These beads were not encase, but give the "look" of encased flowers.
You are welcome to encase them after the above mentioned steps. I don't find
it necessary.
I hope this helps you out. If you have any further questions you can drop me
a e-mail or PM any time and I will be glad to help. Please let me know how
they turn out.
I tried many different flowers on and off in the last 4 years, and finally
found ones that seem to work every time. With quick and easy steps.
BTW orange and yellow do not turn out well neither do some of the reds. Then tend to not show up well on a transparent base. Electric Yellow does well, and the coral color does. But I love the periwinkle with colbalt over it. If you place the colbalt dots on top of the periwinkle towards the center of the 4 dots the center of your flowers will turn out to have the great darker color.
Shawn Tip on Colors:
Lt. transparent Pink, rolled in Fuchsia Frit then silver, thin layers of clear and encase in the transparent pink. It also work beautifully if you change it to Lt. trans. Blue, and blue frit.
Shawn’s organics:
The organic tabs I make a lot of, very easy. Dark transparent color, wrapped in silver and thin layers of Dr. Ivory and a little bit on Intense black. Melt in and flatten.
how to get even dots:
Heat the tip of the stringer into a point. Then when you heat the spot on the bead you can barely touch the stringer to the bead to get a tiny dot straight on the other side of the first dot, by looking the mandrel straight in the eye. You are placing a tiny dot, so when you look at the dot straight on if you have your dot too high or too low you can cover up the tiny dot with the bigger size dot. Basically a marker to show you where the other side of the bead is.
How to get the Raku to POP
It work well on reactive colors. I have used Dr. Ivory, Copper green, reg. and red. Opal yellow I love it on. But first time I think you should start off with back.
Why Black you ask? Because You will be able to see all the colors and the reaction very quickly as the bead cools.
Use the largest size frit you have. I find the best reactions with the #2 size and the Chunks I pull into stringers. If anybody needs instructions on how to pull chunks into stringers let me know I have it marked in my favorites and will post the link.
Make a round bead out of the black, Moretti Vetrofond doesn't matter.
Heat up the bead and roll it in the #2 size frit. Now you have to put a lot of heat back into the bead. Melt the frit in and then heat it some more, heat it up and let the frit start to swirl, spinning your mandrel so you don't loose the round shape. Then keep swirling while you take it out of the flame, and touch the bead to something brass. (I do not have a brass stump shaper so I use the side of one of my Zoozii or Catt's presses) Flat the bead on both sides. Let the bead cool and look at the colors if you like the colors and they "came out to play with you" Then bring it back into the back edge of the flame to get rid of the chill marks. If you got mostly orange and tan, then reheat the bead, and try again. When I say the bead needs to be really hot I am saying that it need to be so hot and molten that it may fall off the mandrel if you don't spin it fast enough, The frit will look almost clear with a darker center.
Most of the ones I did, I first flattened with my BBQ mashers and then touched it to the brass very quickly. I have never had to use the ice water some people mentioned to get the colors to work. The colors will come ut by the rapid heating and cooling. You can do it over and over again till you get the look you want.
I have not had that great of luck with the fine frit the #00, but I did get some colors not the whole bead to turn colors.
When using the stringer. I pulled thin stringer out of the chunks. Made a base bead out of black. then I made beads with dots, some with scroll work, some with lines Etc. I turned down my propane, way down when applying the stringer. It like the oxygen and the cooler flame. Then melted in the stringer, and flattened with my BBQ masher, and touched to the brass. Put the bead in the back of the flame and flashed the chill marks off.
*Note* once the colors come out, do not worry about putting your bead back in the flame, the deep colors will not go away. I have never lost the purples or blues and pinks by reheating the bead.
Please excuse the bead poop these pic where taken when RAKU had first come out and was only days old I was taken pic as soon as they came out of the kiln as people were so eager to know to work RAKU and learn as quickly as they could how to work it. There wasn't a lot of info out on how to work the new frit.
Below is on Gaffer clear
Copper and Coppered Stringer:
The coppered stringer reacts with any of the Ivory glass, the coral glasses and any other that contains suffer. The green color will change depending on how you use the stringer. It goes through the green to blues, reds, oranges, purples etc. totally dependent on how the glass is heated. in all of the colors however there will always be a black line around them when put on sulfer glass. the coppered stringer sometimes changes colors in one area more than another so one can get bands of the color change as well. the green is the coolest worked color- more heat and it goes to blues, more heat and it goes to purple tones, after that is red, if it starts going too orange you are risking losing the color effect completely. There is also ALOT of copper in the copper stringer. much more than there usually is in the average glass. consider all the results one can get from the different copper glasses ( the copper green, copper blue and copper red) the color difference on most of those is due to the different heat they have been subjected to. I also assume that the more one heats the copper stringer the more of the copper comes to the surface. Definately the best reds are from HUGE amounts of copper at intense heats.
The leaf copper one can burnish on to a bead or vessel- flash it a bit and immediately encase- this will cause a whole galaxy of ultra tiny bubbles in a fine layer that basically stays put just in the spots where the copper was- I often use the copper foil between paper to punch out a design to do that with and the bubbles make the picture- fast and intense looking. works well with the sun, moon, flower and star punches in the scrap booking area as well as the wild patterned scissors that are available (scallops etc.) if the copper is mixed in rather than flashed it has color reactions. Very versatile stuff. Aluminum leaf also has intense results but it tends to go to the surface sometimes as a metallic and the copper never does. ( at least not on me)
More Color Tips (Copper Green):
If you put dots of clear on CG and melt them in the dot will turn yellow. Of course you can do it with swirls scroll work lines what ever. But it will turn a beautiful yellow color when melted flush into the bead. If you use the Red Copper Green the dots will turn PINK!
Copper Green with clear melted in:
Bracelet made with a base of Red Copper Green with dots and scroll work of clear melted in
