This being the third post in this series, I figured it was time to collect the posts together and link them to the glassbeads page. Which is a handy excuse for putting off that explanation of plucking to another day. However, I did figure out that the pale blue is just an opaque periwinkle stringer cased in a pale transparent blue. It's quite easy to see in my wall-eyed man, who had the too-big pupil of his right eye plucked out a little too vigorously.

Czech and Effetre soda-lime. Head on the left is 30mm high x 25mm wide x 25mm deep. March (29mar for the one on the righ) 2007. Hollow, 3/32 mandrels.

You'll note one of the reasons my heads tend to look like old people is that lips are rather fallen in on themselves, as if they'd lost a lot of bone andmuscle tone around their mouths. This is because after shaping the lips I'd shove inward with the tweezers to indicate the corners of the mouth the dent below the lower lip, etc. The end result was that the chin would jut past the lips, which on most people it doesn't. I fixed this problem a little with Mrs. Green by adding a second set of lips on top of the first. I like that her nose is properly melted in, too.

But I still have a long way to go; though thankfully I have only one more (thick) rod of this horrid green glass to use up. Since it's so shocky, once it gets down to about six inches or so, I toss it, a horrendous waste, but the stuff can't be puntied together. I'm not altogether sorry to have the excuse to pitch it, it's such a pest.

I have this hope that once I go back to the ivory, my beads will substantially improve. Yes, I am subject to magical thinking, why do you ask?

page photographed & created 30mar07

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