Most of the animal head sculptures I've seen have tended to be focal sized beads of 1-1/2 inches (say 40mm) or so; the first three tiger heads I made after attempting Joy Cichewicz’s tiger head class last year were roughly in that size range. But for whatever reason, I decided to make this one a little smaller, and I think it came out better.

Tigerhead, 28x27x21mm hxwxd. Made 6apr09. Sorta-semi hollow, with ivory, dense black, and amber effetre/vetrofond soft glass. You can see two other views in the etsy listing.

One of the things I really like about Joy's version of tiger heads, which I've featured before is that she cases the base glass with transparents, which gives the bead more depth. —The first time I tried to make a tiger head bead, lo these many years ago, I think I used bright orange glass and tried to draw stripes on. Joy's method is sort of a modified tiger bead, which I think is really clever

I still have a ways to go before I match Joy's expertise, though I'm already starting to make minor modifications—I really like to include the ruff;outline the eyes in black; and put that little dent in the middle of the nose. I left off the whisker dots. Haven't figured out a way to modify this method for side-drill, but that's next on the list, I guess, (along with lots more practice.)

bead, 6apr, photo 7apr, post 8apr, intro 9apr09.

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