Studio Time: Encasing is where it's at in glass

Okay, okay, I'm coming around to the fact that the reason you do glass involves encasing. I've been pretty scared of encasing, but I'm beginning to come around. My first attempts were really messy. I'll use the messy encasing in my designs someday, but right now, I just need precision.

I did three encased beads tonight. I'm REALLY excited about one. I had sketched it out and it turned out exactly like I imagined. Actually, even better than I imagined because it's glass and all sparkly. But, then I ruined it with the stringer work. I need to do straight stringers to make a diamond pattern. A few are straight and a few are shaky. If I would have just done dots, this would have been a great bead. In spite of the shaky stringers, I still really like it. It should be a keeper for me.

My other disappointment is I wanted to do blue transparent colors with black stringer scrolls and then etch them. I did Dark Streaky Sapphire. This is phenomally beautiful color. But, the stringer work didn't show up. The Sapphire was too dark. And then I etched and it took the pretty out of the beads. So, lesson learned: Sapphire should be for layering in with other blues. It's too dark to be by itself except as spacer (which did turn out really cute). I'm going to try an acqua blue with black stringer and turquoise with black stringer. I think I'll try etching a few of the turquoise. I also want to play with the presses. And encasing! And I'm going to implode!

Focus. Focus. Tomorrow, it's the blues with black stringer. And see if I can repeat that focal bead but WITHOUT the stringer work. I'll keep stringer work separate until I have real control instead of random control.