Ask StudioMarcy ~ Online Coaching " Penguins" with Fiona and Me

Welcome to today's online coaching. But first a quick note... tomorrow's post will include a video posting. I'm trying to learn this century's technology, so it's a bit of an experiment, as well as some fun. It will include a contest to win a free bead too.

Fiona couldn't have chosen a better type of bead to make, because unknown to her, penguins have really been on my mind recently. My daughter leaves soon to work in Antarctica, where penguins are one of the featured inhabitants. I've been thinking I need to make more and now I have this chance.

Here is Fiona's second lampwork glass sculptural bead. She is now making penguins. This little fellow will be shown in three different poses.

Here is a side view. Let's talk about his basic construction. I can not tell whether this penguin was made on a black base with a white section added for his tummy or whether he was made with a white base and the additional black glass added on. That's a good thing. So here are a few tips for making the base bead.

1. Shape can be long barrel shape or chubby tear drop shape. With the addition of wings, it makes the slimmer top section thicker, so either would work.
2. When adding white to a black base bead, make sure your black is not too warm. If the white is warm and the black is too warm, then sometimes your white starts blending into your black around the edge and you get a bit of purple outline. As you know, white glass is a lot softer than the stiffer deep transparent purple, (if using Effetre brand), which we know as black glass.

So now it's time to add the head. Fiona added a head that looks like our donut shaped bead. It's in proportion in size, but doesn't have quite as much room for a face. My suggestion is to make it a little larger, so your eyes, beak and any other features can stand out a little better. I really like his beak. I think the size and shape are perfect.

The eyes could use a little work. Perhaps melting in the whites first, letting them cool a touch and then adding the black pupil at the end, will keep it from standing out too much. In person usually an eye that is so 3-D looks fine, but photographing something like that is much harder. If you want your penguin to look more like a character, you can make the eyes larger, if you want it more realistic, keep them in proportion to what they should be. Always add your farthest away eye first. Then the closer one will be easier to for you to gauge and place. I put on the whites of the eyes as soon as I make the head. That way I can melt in the white, without disturbing any of the other features. While I'm melting in the whites, I add a little heat and then gently marver the dot flatten a bit- not pushing hard, because that will spread out the white. Heat again gently and repeat, until they are in the shape and location that you want them.

Fiona wrote to me about the Penguin - "my second ever birdy bead... he is about 25mm tall, has popping eyes (when do I put the white on to melt it flat) Im 'quite' happy with his beak and feet but his right wing (as you face him) is odd... I know what I did though.. put too much black on.. I didn't let it get hot enough be before I swiped it so it was too thick."

Well, Fiona knows exactly what to do differently next time, which you will shortly see. You want your gather nice and hot and you want both of them the same size. Here are a couple of tricks.

1. If you have a hard time adding your wings in the right spot, then before you add them, place a small dot of black where you want them to start. It will blend in when you add the wings, but will be a visual reminder where they should be. If you don't like how you placed it at first, then just melt the dot in and start over.
2. Your wing gather of black glass should be approximately the same size for both wings. you can measure your glass, or you can just "note" it pretty carefully. Be aware of what you're doing and it will work much better. In cases where perfection is really important, you can keep a set of calipers on your studio bench and measure the rod as to how much of the rod you're going to use.
3. Once you've laid on the first wing, don't forget that you can make some adjustments. You can heat just the wing and move around the raised glass with your brass Stump Shaper or other brass tool. (One of my sayings..."graphite will smooth it, brass will move it"). Then do the same with the other wing. If a wing is too narrow at the bottom, add some small dots of black and gently heat them in and move them where you need extra glass to make your wing fuller.
4. If the wing is too big, then don't forget that you can remove glass by heating it up a bit and taking a cold rod or stringer of the same color and gently pulling some off. Careful, go slowly on this, as if you take too much, you just have to add it on again.


Here is Fiona's second penguin. Wow! She named it,
"I Believe I Can Fly" with good reason. Look how she added character to the wings, (which are well balanced), the eyes are improved, and she even photographed it so that it looks like it's on ice. Hooray for Fiona and her fabulous penguins.

I suggested to her that it's now time to add more details to them, whether it's clothing like a striped scarf, or other items to make them stand out as "hers". Besided, penguins make not only great winter beads to sell, but also she can market them as Christmas tree ornaments. Holiday marketing will be an entirely different blog post.

So watch for more of Fiona's penguins. She told me she has a Devil Penguin in the works.
And visit my etsy shop, http://www.StudioMarcy.etsy.com. I will be posting my version of a penguin bead a little later today. Mine is wearing ear muffs, a bow tie and a cumberbund. You can't dress up too much if you're a penguin, because black and white go with everything.

See you tomorrow for the video blog and fun contest....

Ask StudioMarcy ~ Online Coaching #1 Bird Today and Penguins Tomorrow

Meet Fiona from

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire in the UK. Her bead website is www.sterlingdesigns.co.uk . She's my first online student and for someone who has been working on a Hot Head torch for 9 months and hasn't ever done a sculptural bead. I must say, she sure makes it look easy. I'm so happy to be working with her.

Fiona has made three beads, so today we'll work with her very first sculptural bird (ever!) and tomorrow we'll chat about her next two ~ which are penguins. This is your chance to try a penguin and then compare it to what we discuss tomorrow.

Fiona is left handed and holds the 1/16th mandrel in her left hand and her glass rod in her right. I'm sure that's fine, but it was an interesting point to me. Usually our dominant hand is the one that creates the details with the glass, while our less dominant hand turns the mandrel.

So let's look at this cute little blackbird. In one of Fiona's earlier conversations with me, she mentioned that she was happy with the bigger body and smaller head with the hole running through both. She liked the beak okay, but she said, "the wings defeat me". So here was my first email coaching that I sent back to her:

"Wings are like painting on commas with a thick stringer, depending on the size of your bead. I heat a gather of glass, make the connection at the main point where the wings will connect and then with one swoop, make a slightly curved wing with that hot glass. the rest of the body is relatively cool, so it doesn't come along for the ride. You might look here for an example, http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=10458319

You can see where I pressed down at the widest part and then pulled up into a point. I used a striped cane, so I would have some contrast between the bird body and the wings. The easiest way to do it is having enough glass in your hot gather for a big swish."

As you all can see, Fiona used a two donut shape approach to her bird body. One larger donut shape for the body and then a smaller one on top. I think it's cute and chubby this way. Next time, Fiona might want to consider adding another large dot on the lower back side to give it a little more bird booty shape in the back. I tend to add more glass in the back for back feathers. You need to decide what shape you want the tail to take. If you're doing a small tail, I add on more glass in a small "smile" shape and lay on a couple layers of it. Then I heat up just that glass, and use my pliers to shape it into extended tail feathers. Because it's a mass that is warm, you can pull it out a bit too, to give it more shape.

Make sure you know where your face will be, as this type of bead usually has a front, whether you plan it or not. Sometimes it just looks better when you inspect it.

Now for the face. It looks like Fiona used the same color as the beak and feet for the eyes. I understand that blackbirds have yellow eyes, but perhaps you might consider using a slightly lighter yellow next time for more contrast. I think your beak is great for the first time. Sometimes people make them rather pointed like in real life, but then it's harder for you to wear, as you don't want it too sharp and poking you. You might have it stand out a little more horizontally next time if you prefer that look. If it's hard to do, then try making one large dot and let it cool a bit then reheat the tip and pull it out with your yellow rod and hold it in place until it cools and you can gently break off the tip of the rod. Then flame heat the beak just a touch to get any remaining glass marks off of it.

Because we're chatting about more birds tomorrow, Fiona's penguins, we'll just touch on the feet for a minute. You have a couple of options here. I think that these are great for a first try. It's hard figuring out where you want to place them, (on the bottom directly under the eyes is a great way to "spot" where to put them). But perhaps you might have wanted to make them a larger dot, gently flatten them a bit with your marver from the bottom and either use your scissors to cut them a little or tweezers to give them a little more shape like bird feet. These are wonderful for the first try.

For those of you who want to try a bird and keep it even easier. Perhaps you might want to try this method.

Marcy's Simple Bird Tutorial

1. Make a good sized donut shaped bead. This will be the body of the bird.

2. Make a medium sized dot on the top shoulder of the bead (this will be the head)

3. Make another medium sized dot on the top shoulder directly on the opposite side of the bead and that mass of glass will become the tail.

4. While keeping the bead warm, add two simple black dot eyes on the head. If you are using a dark base bead, then you want to do a first tiny layer of white, and gently marver that down, so it's round and gets chilled into shape. After it's set, you can add the dark black mini dots on top of it. Keep the black pupils small.

5. Flip the bead over to the tail and warm up just that dot. Gently squish that glass with your pliers or tweezers first in the middle and then on either side of the first squish. As you squish, lift or drop the tail a bit in the direction that you want. Often I lift it up and pull it out a bit.

6. Still keeping your bird warm, make a medium gather of a coordinating glass rod color and make that comma motion that I mentioned on body of the bird where the wing would go. I always work on my less dominant side first. So when you repeat it on your "easier" side, you can match it up and feel more coordinated while doing it.

7. Add two dots of "feet" color under the body towards the front. Gently flatten them so they just peek out and give the hint that they exist, but aren't a major focal point on it.

8. Now the beak. Take your beak color- often I use a contrasting neutral- brown, ivory or black, and place a dot in the center part of the head. I let it sink in well and then reheat and gently pull it out with a small stringer of the same color. I gently pull the stringer off and reheat just the very point to get it in the right.

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Check back tomorrow for Fiona's penguins. You'll be amazed at her progress between the first and the second one. And please, leave some comments for Fiona. I think she deserves huge kudos for volunteering to be the first one coached and for her fabulous first sculptural bead.

And to see both of my easy online tutorials together, I have made a simple bird sitting on a cactus bead. It's here: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=34983

Ask Studio Marcy...Online Coaching Now Taking Requests

I woke up this morning thinking about all the lovely responses I received from offering a free mini tutorial earlier this week. Thanks everyone for your kind words.

So my natural progression both from being happy from hearing that, is to wonder what else can I do that will be nice for the lampwork community?

It came to me... Online Coaching.

I am a lampwork teacher. I love it. Helping beadmakers achieve what they want to do and then seeing their smiles afterward really makes me excited. There's nothing like it.

I can share my 8 years of glass experience and we can all learn from this. I know that there are lots of lampworkers out here in cyber land who don't have the luxury of classes being taught in their hometowns. (That's one of the things I love about Atlanta- we get great teachers here!)

So here's how I'd like to set this up:
a. I will do this twice a month - every other week to start. We'll see how it goes.
b. Hopefully, this will be a semi interactive situation. Where someone will offer one of their beads as an example and I'll both post their photo and comments and then provide suggestions that might include tips, techniques, color suggestions, etc. in a kind and supportive manner so it is a group learning experience.
c. And the readers who are following this, may offer their opinions also as long as they are in a kind and supportive manner. (I moderate all posts, so only those types of posts will be allowed)
d. I'd like to try to keep this to the sculptural area, to encourage more people to try it.
e. Now the nitty gritty.
1. Email me through my blog contact form on- www.StudioMarcy.com. You can send a photo, 72 dpi and no larger than 1000 x 1000. I can't choose everyone, but I'll try to find the photos which provide a great learning experience for everyone viewing it. I will respond to everyone though. Please include the word "Coach" in the subject line. Also tell me what you would like to know, your website or etsy shop name if you'd like, (hey, additional pr is always good), what kind of torch you use, glass type, and any other back ground info or pertinent info you'd like to tell me.
2. If you are chosen, your name will be placed in a hat for a quarterly drawing for one of my beads.

And I would be remiss if I didn't pop in a plug for my teaching gigs. As I mentioned, I love teaching. If you or your group would like to learn more about sculptural glass beadmaking in person, I'm an empty nester and love to travel. Please contact me for my class syllabus and other info at
www.StudioMarcy.com

Please share this opportunity with others. Blog it, post it in forums, or where ever we can get volunteers to try this concept. Now let's get this party started! Who will be first?
Cheers,
Marcy