All things being equal, Effetre and Vetrofond—the Italian soda lime colors—tend to have fairly crisp delineations between opaque colors (i.e. 2xx pastel and 4xx special series); but bullseye “opaques” are much softer looking, like the so called greasy glass. (You see this effect in the 3xx and 5xx alabastro and opalino Effetre colors as well, but because they're harder to use—both because they boil and because of incompatibility issues—this look is one I associate, and prefer to achieve, with the american made bullseye glass.)

Combine the softer edges with hues typically associated with the softening of the weather, like these Easter-egg pinks, greens and blues, and you have a buncha beads one might be forgiven for thinking are rather ‘springy’ —if I did make them in the depths of winter.

gravity swirl beads. Most around 10–14mm, hole to hole. Hollow, bullseye soda-lime glass. December? 2005.

And for those of you wondering what gravity swirl is: well, you make a bead, stripe hole to hole (horizontally, in line with the mandrel) then use a sharp hot flame to heat the center, which sags downward, whilst the glass by the holes stays stiff, stretching the stripes into a ‘V’ shape. Rotate the bead rapidly away from you (up) to keep it round (not to mention making a fairly thick bead to begin with). You can also move the stripes by marvering, but I prefer this technique—the fewer tools that touch the glass, the less it bubbles.

file created 11jan06 (hence the 2006 name, even though the beads were made in 2005.)

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.