While experimenting with the diverse warm glass techniques in the glass art studio of NMMU in that first year, I also had the opportunity to attend a 2 day bead making course with Ingrid de Haast in Cape Town.
http://www.glassbeads.co.za/blog/
I learned about how to work with a proper hothead torch and the right way to handle the mixing of the two gases. (I had been working with camping gas only up to now). The most valuable word I learned was “POOP” (propane, oxygen, oxygen, propane) – the correct order to open and close your gas bottles. Quite important advise if you don’t want to blow up the house! You can bet your bottom dollar, I’ll never forget that word ever again and what it stands for!
I learned about how to work with a proper hothead torch and the right way to handle the mixing of the two gases. (I had been working with camping gas only up to now). The most valuable word I learned was “POOP” (propane, oxygen, oxygen, propane) – the correct order to open and close your gas bottles. Quite important advise if you don’t want to blow up the house! You can bet your bottom dollar, I’ll never forget that word ever again and what it stands for!
I also learned about the importance of protecting your eyes from the glare of the molten borosilicate glass and the variety of equipment that's available to make flameworking versatile and creative.
Ingrid showed me how to design the workspace for convenience and easy workflow and explained the various suppliers and differences between the various glass products.
Back at the NMMU Glass studio I also tried my hand on “fused glass jewellery” and tested some scraps for fusing, tack fusing and gold enamel results. I even made a necklace with small glass mosaic tiles screen printed and baked with glass enamels.
left: blue scraps of cathedral glass (traditionally used for stained glass windows) fused and gold enamal applied before 2nd firing. I combined it with flameworked beads and commercial beads.
middle: homemade float (window) glass stringers tack fused onto other pieces of float glass with gold lustre added before second firing. I combined this with commercial crystal beads.
right: I screenprinted patterns onto commercial available glass mosaic tiles with glass enamel and fired at lower temperature. Completed it with jewellery findings and black seed beads.
These were fun projects, but the other experiments with fused and slumped glass would eventually prove to be much more challenging to tap into my creativity and I embraced that with fervour and enthusiasm.
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