Rita Stucke gets some absolutely glorious effects with shards in her beads. I didn't even come close to duplicating the effect until she kindly demoed for us, one snowy day earlier this year, and I discovered that her secret is that she blows her shards really thin. As in, so thin they're a dust hazard. Sigh.^[1]

Big holed beads.

I was probably happiest with the pink bead, which I rolled in thompson enamel, as an experiment. I like the way the shards and the enamel interacted. The color scheme for bead on the left doesn't really work for me, but I know some other bead artists just love it. It does show the lovely effects you can get with silver plum shards, which to my mind are the most attractive, not to mention most cost-effective, way to use this silver-laden, thus expensive, glass.

The two beads on the right don't win any points for elegance of shape, but the texture and color is starting to come together.

Another view.

What I find weird about this picture is the invisibility of the hole of the pink bead. I did finally figure it out but I had to stare the picture for quite awhile. And I made this bead. —Which again goes to show that your photography can make or break a bead.

file created 4jun08, photographs, 20080528. Beads made after Rita's demo and before Jun 1.

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