Secrets of Lampworking Glass Flowers
Want to know my indispensable steps for lampworking glass flowers? I’ll explain the steps using my Plumeria flowers as the example.
It’s all in forgetting everything you know about how you see the world.
You need to start with the assumption that we don’t see what we’re looking at.
Lampworking glass flowers opens you up to a whole new world into Nature. A new way of seeing! I discovered that plumerias and swirls go together. Did you know plumeria petals literally look like a pinwheel?
It’s amazing how your mind has preconceived ideas of how things should look.
We think we know how something looks and we proceed to paint or sculpt the object in glass. But the truth is we are almost always wrong!
We need a fresh view point to truly see what we’re looking at.
1. Viewing upside down. I picked some plumerias from my garden (boy did they smell wonderful) and examined them close up. I was bewildered & confused how their petals were shaped! I couldn’t figure out where they started or ended. How in the heck could I make one in glass if I didn’t have a starting petal (a start point) with my torching?
So I looked again but this time upside down to trick my mind.
When I turned them upside down, I tried to see shapes, angles, directions of each petal to figure out the shape-where they began & ended!
2. Research. Look at as many photos as you can. I had to look plumerias up on the internet to investigate farther. After seeing a whole page of them & studying them did it finally clicked in my brain that I was making the petal shape wrong!
3. Turn the photos upside down to see the abstract shapes of the plumerias. It’s the only way to confuse your logical thinking mind to really see what you are looking at!
Look at my Glass Plumeria Flowers photo, above. Now, Look Again but upside down! This give you a overall quick glance. Your eyes will be drawn to the problem area & you’ll get a new perspective on what you’re brain has been telling you wrongly.
4. Drawing them upside down helps in seeing them how the petals really are. You will also see abstract shapes with darks & lights.
Fresh ideas for you to ponder to make your beads truly unique & you.
I do this little exercise whenever I paint or sculpt in glass. Trust me…it works!
5. Dissecting. I even had to slowly pull one plumeria bloom completely apart to really see the working mechanics of this amazing flower. Doing that is where I discovered that each petal had a long tubular part that allowed all the petals to actually open all at once.
Not the way I had assumed the flower opened up!
Here is a photo of a plumeria flower in my garden but if you don’t have live flowers, go buy some! I do this often.
Alas, our cold weather slowly killed my gorgeous Plumeria trees. Since I always try to lampwork from live flowers from my garden, I haven’t had the privilege of lampworking glass flowers like these for many years. I may have to grow them again!
I actually dug my plumeria trees up every year until they were too big to dug anymore. I would fill my garage full of these trees…sorry cars!
The reason for my madness!
In my tutorials, I give experiments to help you study, closely, the subject you are making.
Only through sketching, dissecting and photographing your subject do you really understand it. Getting really intimate helps you to portray the elements that excite you about your subject in a bead.
6. Accentuating what speaks to you (excites you) makes your bead unique and one-of-a-kind.
Below are examples of lampworking glass plumeria flower beads that I think express my artistic vision of plumerias.
Snatch this sweet flower for yourself in my shop!
Just One More Thing!
7. Perfection will kill your glasswork! It has been a challenge to capture their qualities. I found if I made them too perfect, they looked artificial. I have to put little imperfections to make them look real….Again, going against what my mind wanted to do was tough!
A major problem I see with many glass lampwork flowers~too much perfection! You’ll find artificial flowers to be perfect, not Mother Nature’s!
Lightly etching my glass lampwork plumeria flowers gave them the velvety look that they possessed in real life. It was almost a dewy film. It made the plumeria petals feel leathery.
Nature is such an amazing creator and inspirational prompter to stimulate our creativity! We just have to look closely!
This Plumeria journey of lampworking glass flowers took days, 3 re-firings and an etch bath. Sometimes it just takes time to get to know one of Mother Nature’s creatures! And that’s what fine glass art is all about!:)
Inspired to do some research on your own?
Happy lampworking!
Patsy
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