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WELCOME TO BEADICATION!!!
I make lampworked beads in my home studio on a Nortel Mega Minor torch and an oxygen concentrator. All my beads are properly annealed in a digitally controlled kiln so they will last a lifetime.
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Welcome Back!!!!
Again I want to thank you all for your support. It has been great all the support I have been receiving. Please continue your support and tell everyone you know. As we grow, we will be able to bring you more and more information. I want to thank Joe and Barry from Avenue Beads for their continued support. They are offering a 20% one time discount to all Art Glass News Weekly readers from October 15 to October 20th. Just use coupon code AGNW and receive 20% on your order before shipping. THANKS GUYS!
Christmas is Coming
Is you inspiration taking an early holiday break? When I find myself bored with making the same things for a show I find myself surfing the internet looking for new ideas. Below I have links to some of my favorite free winter tutorials.
Polar Bear Video Icicles Tutorial Frosty Tutorial Angel Christmas tree (in Dutch)
Next week I will be highlighting Christmas Tutorials for sale, if you want to be included, please email me.
Jive Turkey I love making turkeys. I have seen them made from lentils and other shapes but I love this little bead based ones. These instructions are for turkeys with a horizontal hole, if you make them with a vertical hole, make sure to add wings to the body.
Needed: Brown, Transparent Brown, Multicolored, Red, Yellow, Orange, Clear, Black & White Stringers. Scissors. Tweeers
Step 1: Make Twisties with red, oranges, and yellows. You will also need stringers in white, black, yellow, orange, and red.
 Step 2: Make a round brown bead for the turkeys body. Flatten the back side of the bead where the tail feathers will go.
Step 3: Start building up the tail feathers. Lay down alternate colors of red, yellow, orange and twistie in the shape of a horse shoe, where the opening of the shoe faces the bottom of the chicken. You want to keep the part you are building up like a disk bead, thin and tall. Keep building it up until the tail feathers are about 1/3 taller than you want them to end up being. You can use your marver to keep the back of the feathers flat. 
Step 4: Once all the tail feathers are built up, use your tweezers to make them flat and round shaped. Once the tail is shaped correctly, use your clear stringer to twist the ends in so they are rounded. You can also use your stringer to make other twirls on the back of the tail to make it more appeasing to the eye. Try not to disturb the look of the layers on the front of the tail.
 Step 5: Once the tail feathers area is all rounded out, it is time to start cutting in the individual feathers. Heat a small area to glowing and then using your scissors, cut 2/3 of the way through the disk. I try not to make the feathers any thinner than 1/8 inch. Don't worry about the pointy edges, they will round out as you are flashing the tail feather while building the rest of the bird.
Step 6: Build the neck and head. Heat the end of the transparent brown rod and let it start to droop slightly. Making sure that the area in front is warm enough to bond the glass together. Left the blob of glass lay upon the front and pull up slowly. Heat the glass sticking up into a ball, this is your head. You may need to use your tweezers or razor tool to shape the neck some and bring the head to the right plain in relation to the body.
Step 7: While the head and neck are getting solid, take a mome nt to put some feet on your bird. Just 2 little dots on the bottom of the bead. Heat them up and gentle press against a flat surface so your turkey will stand up when completed.
Step 8: Time to create a face. using your white stringer, put 2 small dots on the top of the turkey head. Don't melt them  in. Then put a small orange dot on the end of the face for the beak. Gently heat the area and pull the beak out to a point. This should gently pull the white dots making them not so round. This is the look I like. Put a small black dot in the center of each white dot for pupils. If you chose to, this is the time to add a small dot of stringer under the chin for a gullet.
Step 9: If you have no been flashing the bead, you will find that your tail feathers are now laying on your work bench. That's ok, just rebuild it and try again. Once the bird is complete, gently heat it and put it in the kiln to anneal.
Are you Ready to be our First Centerfold?
Since we all love some good bead porn, I figure that we should start highlighting a different artist every month as our "Centerfold" This months artist will be highlighted in our October 28th Issue. If you would like to nominate someone (or yourself) please email us why your person should be chosen in 50 words or less. Nominations will be accepted until 10/25/09.
I hope you enjoyed this weeks issue. Please email us if you have something you want to see in an upcoming issue. Don't forget to check out the sale at Avenue Beads. They are great guys and their customer service is amazing.
Remember, there are 3 ways to entered into the drawing for the $50 gift certificate to Artcoinc.com. Drawing ends soon so sign up NOW!
See you next week.
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