I originally wrote this tutorial in September 2011 for Beverly Hicklin's Make Glass Beads resource but she has now taken that offline so I thought I'd preserve it here.
I noticed that owls
are really fashionable right now, they’re on fabrics, stationery and people are
even making owl-shaped beads! I was
looking at a heart focal I made and realised the shape would make a great base
for a wise old bird ...
1. First of all make a heart shaped bead. Use a press or shape by hand.
2. Heat the
surface of your bead and roll in frit to decorate – I used a fine iris orange (raku)
frit for a feathery look. Melt frit
smooth.
3. Apply large dots for the eyes, press flat into
the bead, then cover with a large dot of coloured transparent. I used Effetre sky blue and Effetre
transparent medium blue.
4. Pick up a
murrini chip in the tip of tweezers, flash the bottom of the chip in the flame
and at the same time, lightly warm the eye area, then apply the murrini onto
the centre of the coloured dot. Twice!
5. Warm and
gently press the murrini down with a marver.
Do this a few times until the murrini chips are almost – but not
completely – flat. Use a sharp point to
poke the centre of each chip.
6. Cover each
murrini with a dot of clear to really magnify the murrini for proper owl eyes!
7. Add two
large dots at the bottom of the heart and flatten from the bottom to make feet.
8. Use a
razor tool or knife blade to mark claws in the feet dots. I used sky blue for my owl’s feet.
9. Add a
large dot in between and below the eyes, then use tweezers to pinch into a beak
shape, it should be long and narrow, slightly wider at the top than the
bottom. I used dark chocolate brown.
10. Add
feathers! I made 6 large raised dots in
sky blue, then added another small dot on top of each one to make them look a
little spiky!
Give the owl eyes
extra depth by shaping the socket with a flower rod tool from Mango Beads: heat
and soften the eye area, lay the bead back in the heart press or on a marver to
support the shape, then gently press in the round tool to make indentations for
eye sockets. Add the opaque and transparent
dots, then support and indent again before applying the murrini.
Thanks very much Julie.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing .. Very generous !!
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