I have always loved colorful beads. I am particularly fascinated by the beauty of lampwork beads, beads made by hand in the flame of a hot torch. And I've wanted to learn to make them for quite some time now. So yesterday I spent the day taking an introductory lampwork class at the wonderful
Adirondack Folk School in Lake Luzerne NY. Here's what I made.
I was very proud that my beads mostly turned out pretty round, and that some of them are somewhat attractive! I wasn't particularly successful at making dots, so I melted my lumpy lopsided dots into the beads and swirled them a bit.
I tried making a cube bead and a barrel bead (below), but they are pretty misshapen and overworked.
The bead on the right in the photo below is actually a root beer color.
Below, my favorite bead.
Sorry the photos aren't better. I have cropped them quite a bit.
My colors are a little muddy, because I worked a little too close to the flame, but I don't think these are too bad for my very first efforts!
Two new photos - me at the torch:
e
