So after I made the Garden Fantasy in 2008, a customer spotted it, but wanted to string her own necklace, in darker colours; this page, made nearly a decade later, documents the process I went through to create her custom order, which, since we developed the design via email,[1] I broke down into a series of small steps.
She knew she wanted cobalt for the background; so the first question to be resolved was what colours she wanted for her flowers:
Three pressed hollows. Photographed 20090805. These images are full-sized, but I sent the customer 518 pixel wide crops to make evaluating via email easier.
According to my studio notes, I probably made these beads 5Aug, the same day I photographed them. My notes on the floral cane are as follows:
tried cane: bubblegum [CiM translucent pink] over EDP[2] w/ bl[ac]k, ink [blue], Au[3] ruby & d[ar]k manganese purple
I'm working from memories nearly a decade old, but obviously she wasn't thrilled with the shiny background. So I sent a picture of a couple more samples with differing finishes—silver leaf mostly melted in, or pixie dust:
silver or pixie dust. N.b. the bead on the right is cracked—I probably didn't bother to anneal it, nor even cool it slowly. Photographed 20090807.
Though photographed on the 7th, my studio notes indicate the beads were actually made on the 6th.
Then I had to ramp up to making bigger beads. Up till now, the sample had been small, perhaps 5/8" (roughly 20mm) or so. Now I had to make something quite a bit larger. This looks as if I used something like a 1.5" lentil press on the bead, but since my notes characterize it as a ‘long oval’, I probably didn't: guessing I was trying to get out of using a press, rather than just mashers.[4] Client didn't like it (though I did, so I made my own 3 hole neckace with it...)
2009/20090818 Those specular highlights on the right side of the bead make it very obvious I was using fabric coated lightbox.
I made additional samples on the 13th and 14th (which cracked on the latter day.) The bead made on the 16th, characterized as a ‘long oval’ has a note that it's ‘too round’ [for the customer], and that on the 17th, I used an emerald press, opening up the sides. Which doesn't quite explain, if I didn't photograph the round one till the 18th, how I would've known by the 17th that the customer didn't like it, but otoh, I have May scratched out for August on my studio notes, so obviously I get confused rather easily on dates. In any event, after all that work, I took a break from lampwork, not turning the torch on again 9Sep, some three weeks later.
Two rectangular beads, photo 20091109. Client purchased both.
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
