Five years ago I took Joy Munshower's Surf'n’Turf class. I recently got interested again[1] in trying to put what I learned (or failed to learn...) into practise. Let's start with the ideal, the demo she made for our class, which I was lucky enough to win:
Sandstone Arab, demo version (i.e. unetched) by Joy Munshower, 2015. about 40x45mm, sodalime glass featuring (ofc) sandstone, which iirc was some sort of CiM.[2]
The coursepak,[3] if you'd like to call it that, included a 13 step, 6 page set of instructions, as well as a 8.5x11 colour coded diagram illustrating surface musculature and bone, major joints, and the like. I generally did fine, or at least ok, through about step 7 (or even 8 on a good day). By the time I reached step 9, which had this sort of dual ridge running from the corner of the mouth to cheek, my efforts to play along at home typically took (& still take) a steep nosedive.[4] BTW, the anatomical term for that paired protrusion is ‘Buccinator’ and afiak there's not any easier, everyday way of describing it, so that's how I'll refer to this pair of surface muscles.
My first, rather abstract one was kind of nice, but, fearful of being unable to recreate this very moderate success, there was a considerable hiatus between the first and the rest:
Assorted horseheads—the one to the far left was probably done some time between 17jan and 02feb; the others, on 1, 3, 5 and 13 apr2020 respectively.
Though still unable to reproduce even quite intermediate shapes (e.g. buccinator) there is at least some progress: the last one is, in my opinion (though not some other people, interestingly enough) the best of the ‘realistic’ ones. As a bead, the first one probably works the best—it has a nice sketchy ease to it the others do not.
Partial sketch, emphasis on the bits that were driving me nuts...
Also included in the coursepak were several postcards of horses (or mebbe I filched one of every horse bead she was giving away) not to mention my ongoing inspection of whatever horse or unicorn heads she posts to her instagram. Having finally started (I thought) to show some minor improvement in my efforts, I decided to figure out what was going on in the jaw region: but that's for next time.
[1]The reason being to make pendants for a local shop—ah yes, the spur of possibly getting paid...
[2]Sorry about the photography, the Oly's out on loan;)
[3]It came in a folder, and definitely amongst the most thorough of written docs I've received at a lampworking clss.
[4]Even more frustratingly, the actual sample I have is somewhat differently portrayed. Btw, the boiling by the throatlatch was, irrc, because Munshower was having some issues with the torch.
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
