Funny beads

I have decided that I need to try and few more techniques and that now is a good time to attempt this. So yesterday I made a couple of beads masking and pulling dots to try and create a pattern. I also made my first attempt at a bird bead - inspired by all the birds I had been looking at in Whitby Museum. Unfortunately I dropped it on the concrete floor of my studio after photographing it and have shattered it...... not that it was very good, just would have been nice to keep the first one! I have attempted another but it is in the kiln annealing.

I have also made my first hollow bead, again not very good but at least I understood the process and managed to achieve a complete bead. It has a few stray threads of glass inside along with bits of bead release that dropped inside as I removed it from the mandrel (and I have no idea how to get it out).

This has all give me food for thought and I won't be getting any work done for the next few days as I am going down to Warwick to stay on the canal boat for the weekend, then Tuesday visiting Nottingham University to look at it as a possible venue for the Guild of Enamellers Annual Conference in 2010.