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April 19, 2015

Winter Colour Diet :: Session #5


It is like a switch got flipped in Session #4, and now this palette and I are friends. Suddenly, these colours and I understand each other a little better and good things are starting to happen with greater regularity. I think some of these need etching to remove some of the muddy reduction that Copper Green is sharing with my other colours, but once that is accomplished I think I will be pretty happy with these beads.


I am pretty sure that what I did here was wrap the wigwag around a big blob of Ink Blue Violet and use gravity to lengthen it into a cone shape and then flattened it and drew Mint Lozenge wings up the side. I added some dots in Ink Blue Violet, Evil Queen, and Copper Green.


I kept going along this organic track for the next bead, this time letting Wood and the wigwag do all the work. I used some frit on one end of the bead that has a purple in it that devitrifies when you get it hot, and so now I am going to have to either etch or sandblast this bead in order to fix the weirdness that caused.

This is a base of Opal Yellow, with the wigwag up diagonally around the bead (I wrapped it around before I flattened it, which is why I got such a nice, wide stripe) and then painted up the sides of the flattened bead. I used Intense Black and Opal Yellow for surface dots, and used murrini that I cut from an untwisted end of the wigwag cane.


This bead is a base of Mint Lozenge with wigwag up the sides. I used Hades this time instead of Intense Black to do the leaves and stems, with much less crazy webbing and travelling across the bead. I used a piece of murrini cut from my wigwag cane to make the flower.


This is the best bead I've made in a year or more. I did this one on a base of Tuxedo, and I used Peace and Tuxedo for the dots on the surface. The bead's edges are done in Shrubbery with Opal Yellow edging, and the ends are lined with Copper Green.


First set with the new press. This press is a GIANT PAIN IN THE ASS.

The Cleopatra press makes pretty nice beads so I will keep going with it. To be fair, it wasn't as hard to use as I suspected it would be when I bought it... so I guess I more or less signed up for the annoyance it's causing and so I deserve it :)

2 comments:

  1. I have been yearning for the Cleopatra and look forward to seeing and hearing about your progress with it! Love your wigwag work Mel - so alive and colourful . . . Keep it coming 😊

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  2. Thanks, Ada! I've been having so much fun with this palette exercise and with the wigwags that I think I am going to keep going with the palette even after I'm technically 'finished'. The Cleopatra press is awesome, but it's annoying as heck to use. I am sure that I will develop more patience with it with some practice, but this set took a lot out of me :)

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