Glass Bead Making Course – St Ives Cornwall

My awesome Chap has noticed how much I’ve been enjoying making silver clay; so he suggested looking for a course we could both do when we were away on holiday in Cornwall.  He chose a 2-hour glass bead making session in St Ives.   I’d always wanted to make glass, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle glass blowing as the pipes would be too heavy for my arthritic fingers to handle.  My Chap also thought it would be a great way to incorporate glass beads into my silver clay jewellery too.

‘To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it’ Kurt Vonnegut, American writer (1922-2007)

I won’t be suggesting you try this at home though 😉 as you need some specialised kit.

Why not find a course nearby and give it a go

If you are on holiday in Cornwall or local get in touch with Lesley – she also does half and full day courses. Lesley made the beads in the header photograph to show some different techniques.

Glass rods on stand

Glass bead making course

• This was a taster session (2 hours) but it was surprising how much we did in the time.
• Glass bead making is also known as lampwork
• If you want to have a look at the process in more detail, there are plenty of videos on pinterest/youtube.

Glass bead making process

It is fairly straightforward to make the glass beads, but you’d definitely need to learn the techniques at a course with an expert tutor.

What you need:

• • mandrel – a steel rod covered with a substance called bead release (the day before) which does what it says on the tin
  • Propane and oxygen gas system – this is clamped to the table in a fixed position. The gas is stored outside to minimise danger.
  • Glass rods – come in many colours and sizes.
  • decorations such as coloured glass fit (small particles of glass in every possible colour/size)
  • metal pliers and tweezers to break the glass rods or manipulate.
  • vermiculite or japanese annealing beads to cool the glass.
  • Special Safety Glasses for Glass making
    They have a very special lens with ACE 202 designation.  They offer SODIUM FLARE protection and have side shields to protect the eyes from flying glass.  Also they have Ultraviolet protection up to 390mm.   

Lesley also has her studio in a north facing room with small windows, so that people can easily see the edges of the flames when you’re learning. As you can see Lesley has a metal table, an extractor fan, fire extinguishers, etc.

It’s not something that’s easy or cheap to set up at home.  However, there may be places local to you that have open studio options.   She has a large bead kiln so she can maximise the number of beads in each firing.

Lesley melting glass rods in the gas flame – note the bowl with mandrels cooling.

The technique

• carefully heat your mandrel in the flame it will glow red – keep your mandrel at a right angle to the flame.
• don’t burn the bead release off otherwise, you’ll need a new mandrel!
• slowly bring your glass rod onto the tip of the flame to start melting the glass – it glows red (see the photo).
• You want the glass to gather (gather=an accumulation of molten glass) at the end of your rod before you touch the mandrel.
• you turn the mandrel anti-clockwise away from you while twisting the glass onto the mandrel – twisting to make a bead shape
• Then place the hot bead into the glass fit – you then melt the bead in the flame again and twist to get a round shape.
  OR add another colour swirl…
  OR add dots of colour…
  the possibilities are endless… including many shapes of beads.
• THEN quickly place the mandrel into a bowl to cool  – these metal bowls have vermiculite or Japanese annealing beads to cool the glass.
• We couldn’t look at the beads later in case the cooling wasn’t even – it takes hours to cool the beads so that they can be fired to strengthen them. 

purple white  glass fit particles in a half pipe.

There are many kinds of decorations – and mixtures of elements which give stunning finishes for the glass beads.

Later Lesley placed the beads in a kiln to ‘anneal’ them which is a method of changing the molecular structure of the glass to strengthen it.

We received our beads in the post a few days later – We were so pleased 🙂  As I said, the hardest thing is making the beads look similar.  

How we got on:

My Chap was a natural!  He’s used blow torches before, is good at delicate DIY work – SO NOT surprised. He soon got the hang of how to melt the glass rods, the right time to move the mandrel to the gas flame and twisting to place the melted glass around the rod (called gathering) and twisting to get an even size.  He tried various techniques of adding swirls and colours (his beads aren’t appearing on the blog as he’s making something with them).

I really enjoyed the learning this process – it requires a steady hand and small movements which suits my style of working.  I definitely improved my bead making by the end.  I needed a firm grip too, so this became a trickier because of the pain in my fingers. However, resting and practise would make this easier.

Once we’d mastered making the plain glass aqua beads, I stuck to one method of decorating the glass which involved making the bead, then placing the hot bead, in a half pipe with ‘glass fit’, which is coloured glass or metal particles in every colour and size you can imagine.    

The hardest thing to master is making your beads look identical – that’s where years of practise come in. 

Our Tutor – Lesley Silver

Lesley has been making high-quality glass bead jewellery for quite a few years – she sells online, ta and at the Cornwall Craft association at Trelssick, Feock (a National Trust property).  She has also been on courses with the glassmakers of Murano in Venice, Italy. Her work is stunning – here’s a selection of photos I took while we were there but there’s more on her Instagram and website.  

• Instagram: @beadsashore
• www.beadsashore.com/

She is a great teacher and I thoroughly recommend her courses* – She hosts courses for up to four people so you get lots of attention and help.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Beadsashore workshop with another talented student great work!#beads#glass#art#design#workshop#learn#lampwork#flamework#artisan#jewellery#handmade#unique#madeinstives#madeincornwall#Venice#Murano#learnwithme#makebeads#colour#wearableart#lovemyjob#

A post shared by Lesley Anne Silver (@beadsashore) on Mar 20, 2019 at 11:48am PDT

What I made:

• plain blue beads were my practice ones – slightly odd shapes but I don’t think matters much.
• purple beads have various amounts of ‘frith’ and some plain glass.
• The beads are about 1cm across and have a 2mm hole.
• I am so pleased with them.

My first attempt – blue glass beads and purple glass with fit added

Our thoughts:

• This is a great workshop and a wonderful skill to learn.
• you definitely need an expert to show you what to do.
• It takes concentration and steady hands – it’s delicate work.
• I wear reading glasses – I needed larger safety goggles to cover my specs but this wasn’t a problem
• For chronic pain sufferers like me – it was relatively easy to do, but I’d need to take more rest sessions if I was working for more than an hour, or so, at a time.

Next Steps:

• When My Chap has more time, he says he’ll be making more beads – when we find somewhere locally.
• I’ll try fused glass next if I can find somewhere local to Manchester.
• I’m working out how to incorporate the beads into my silver clay jewellery – incorporating them into a necklace and bracelets.  I’ll show you what I make 🙂
• If you want to know how to make a simple silver clay pendant here’s my tutorial – this is much easier to do at home.
  • how to make a silver clay pendant using a texture for beginners

*****

Have you ever tried glass making?  How did you get on? Would you like to? Let me know in the comments.

Carpe Diem

Love Bec xx xxx

Note *we paid full price for the course and Lesley didn’t ask us to write a review.  I wanted to give people an idea of the process and our results.   You can get in touch with Lesley via her website or instagram. 

• Instagram: @beadsashore
• www.beadsashore.com/

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Glass bead making course – St Ives Cornwall what we learned #howto #tutorial #glassbead #makeglassbeads #review #StIves #Cornwall #jewellery #jewelry