Murrini Mania: A Work In Progress (Part 2)
So, I made a whole bunch of triangle murrini.
With this batch, I learned some more important lessons:
1. In murrini, opaques contrast with transparents very well.
2. Spreading layers of glass on vertically really does work much better than just coiling them on as if you were encasing a bead.
3. Most importantly - with all due respect to contrast - if you're going to make a huge batch of murrini, you should make it in colors you actually feel like working with.
| The next day, I made exactly one bead with the triangle murrini, wondered what I had made so many triangles for, shrugged, set them aside and moved on to the next project. |
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As I was wondering what to try next, I remembered I had a couple of little bags of commercial murrini from my local glass place. These weren't the millefiori kind; they were just squares, made of layers of different transparents. I'd tried them once, back when hollow bead madness had just begun. I liked the results so much I decided to keep the bead - and since I became so obsessed with so many other things, I forgot all about those murrini.
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So, I decided to make some more beads with those. I got all excited about the idea of transparent murrini, but then, once again, I was faced with not having enough colors. So, I just had to make some of my own. Yet another important lesson learned: for this trick to work, you must use the darkest, most saturated transparents you can find. Anything else will turn out practically invisible. |
The next day, I found a bunch of beads I wasn't quite sure about in my kiln. (Who knew Vetrofond Lemon Grass was so... YELLOW?)
I took one glance at these and their friends, set them aside and rushed to the torch to try out something new.
When I got to the torch, I realized I couldn't think of anything new to try. The day started out as a bad bead day. But, these days, bad bead days cannot become no-melting-glass days, so I decided to have another serious murrini-pulling session. The session went on from 5pm to 2am. Methinks I am getting better at this. (Optic mold has still not arrived - no sophisticated tools used here at all!)
Now, seriously - check out the spirals! I made actual spiral murrini! Woohoo! Remember the "spirals" from Part 1?
This is actually something I've been attempting for a while, with really awful results. I had it all wrong to begin with - I thought you were just supposed to make a long ribbon in two colors of glass, then melt it and coil it into a spiral and pull. That doesn't work - not for me, at least. What does work, is just building the cane piece-by-piece, painting vertical stripes in two colors around the core until you end up with a spiral. My first tries came out a bit "fuzzy" looking (I'm hoping they'll melt into smooth lines when I use them in beads), but I think I know what I was doing wrong - so I'll be trying some improved ones in the near future.
More fascinating discoveries coming soon, in Murrini Mania: Part 3!
<< To Part 1
Might I suggest that you put the little triangle murrini in small baggies and sell them on your Etsy site. I'd be there in a heart beat.....LOL (throw a few of those spirals in too. I can't for the life of me figure out how you did that).
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