I'm a member of a lampwork forum, Lampwork ETC. in one of the threads today someone proposed a challenge to the rest of us, or those of us who read the thread. I can't turn down a good challenge so I had to jump in. The challenge was to take one of our specific styles of beads and change just one thing about it.
Now, unfortunately I'm more of an organic bead maker, I don't do sets. I just kind of go for it...LOL. I have favorite types of beads that I make more often than others. So for me I made the challenge more about picking three colors that I haven't ever worked with. I pulled three rods of glass, each of a different color. Rods that I was saving for what I don't know but for some reason I had never used them. The first was called Violet Ice, an opaque pale violet blue variegated color. The second was called Honey Crunch, a transparent pale topaz with opaque strings through out it's length. And the third called Jupiter is an opaque variegated burnt orange.
I made a bead with each of the rods, just by themselves, which for me is unusual in itself, then I made a bead with all three colors. I love all three of the colors by themselves and will probably use them with other colors but the bead I made with the three colors together, well, lets just say that I won't put them together anytime soon. The transparent topaz just didn't quite translate on top of the violet. I probably should have laid down some white underneath it so that it read as it's self, it turned very muddy on top of the violet. I really fell in love with the violet ice which is probably why I used it as the base for the bead with all three colors. Maybe I should have made three beads with all three colors using each as the base to see what would happen. I can see that this exercise could really open up a whole set of exercises for me in testing different colors together that I wouldn't normally use together.
I've never painted so what I'm going to say next could possibly be just my perception but lampworking, making glass beads with opaque colors and transparent colors must be a lot like trying to paint a picture with oils and pastels, special considerations have to be taken or the transparent just looks like a clear layer over the opaque, depending on it's value of course. I'm just starting to learn what transparent colors look better layered over what opaques. A whole new way of thinking for me.
As I said in the beginning, I can't walk away from a challenge, I really enjoyed this one. I found some new colors to love and not to mix...LOL
Subscribe to this comment's feed
