Creativity

British International Motor Show 2006

I've been sorting out some of my older photos. Below is a handheld panoramic photo taken at the British International Motor Show in 2006. I think I managed to fix all the 'half people' but if you find someone who's cut off let me know? :-) The panorama is 3x1 images.

Light Tent and Howl's

It was my birthday recently and my mum bought me an EZcube light tent. I decided to have a play with it today.

Trying Different Things

I love to try different bead shapes and search for tutorials online. This bear is from Jim Kervin's book outlining the work of Sharon Peters. Wearing protective glasses to keep my eyes from deteriorating further, I find it difficult to distinguish colours sometimes so the bear has a dark brown head and a light brown body. Oh well, the next one I make will have to have a light brown head and dark brown body.
Cartoon Bear: Looking heavenwardsCartoon Bear: Looking heavenwards
The next two pictures are the same bead, different sides to prove that it is not symetrical.

Goddess Bead

I found a goddess bead tutorial by Sarah J Schalken and wanted to try it out. I was very nervous knowing my previous experiences with the fish fins breaking off, but went ahead when the house was free from distractions so I could concentrate on trying to remember all the steps needed to create the Goddess. Here are some pictures of my first try.She's a little twisted, but knowing this, I can try to rectify this at the next try.Goddess Bead: Front viewGoddess Bead: Front view
I ran out of space on the mandrel to put on a head so had to create a seperate bead for this and take a guess at the correct size so that it would be in proportion with the head. The body at that time was immersed in vermiculite to slow down the rate at which the glass cooled and prevent cracking, so I couldn't compare the two together.

Fishes

I've got fed up with looking at that bunny and pig so here are two fish.
Green FishGreen Fish
I'm still having problems with them, keeping all of them hot while working on another part of the fish.

Blue FishBlue Fish
Consequently both fish lost their side fins, these being the thinnest and therefore the most difficult parts to keep hot without melting them in the torch. Both side fins are glued on with E6000 glue which is a high viscosity, clear glue for both glass and metal.

Glass Twisties

Twisties are used to decorate beads and can be simple or more complex ones of more than two colours. I've finally succeeded in making two good twisties thanks to a tutorial at Aussie Beadmakers.
If you click on the complex twistie link, it will get you to the tumbleweed site.
The first twistie is
Glass TwistiesGlass Twisties
Because the dark blue and black used were very similar colours,my second twistie was lavender, pale blue, pale green and black.
Second good twistieSecond good twistie

St. Peter's Church Window

While I was out walking yesterday I came across St. Peter's Church in Dyrham. Unusually for a church this one was open so you could go inside. It's probably because it's so close to Dyrham House. There was a stained glass window opposite the alter which, while not particulary impressive, I thought I could use to improve my technique of shooting panoramic shots of stained glass windows. Unfortunately, I had to set up quite close underneath the window to avoid a light fixture that was hanging right in front of the window. This has given the panel a bit of an extreme viewpoint. In addition, I felt I couldn't get a good enough angle on the windows that sit above the ones pictured below so I've missed those out. Overall, I feel this was more of a success than the last one that I took with this method. It does however show how important cleaning the windows before photographing them is!

River Boyd

Below is a panorama that doesn't look like a panorama! It's a 3x3 image with two exposures blended together. It's the River Boyd in Bitton, taken from a small road bridge which crosses it. It was a good place to stop, sit down, have a drink and rest for a bit. Taking the photos meant I had an excuse not to have to pick up all my gear again and carry on! ;-)

English Village from the Air

This is another hand held panoramic shot taken from when I took my balloon ride. It's annoying blurry like the other two but when reduced in aize it looks a lot sharper.

Set of beads with crystal spacers

I've made a set of beads from dark purple glass, each with four very pale blue swirls and dashes of red. The plain smaller beads are also the very pale blue while they are separated by clear swarovzski crystals. The tiny bead caps are silver. I had thought to use larger Tibetan silver caps but after looking up the composition of Tibetan silver on the web, decided against on the grounds that the information was that this type of "Silver" more usually does not have any silver content at all. Indeed some of the cheaper caps have a large proportion of lead as their metal content.
The beads are what is called donut shaped rather than round and since they are made by hand, there is a slight variation in size according to how much glass is added to the mandrel during torching.

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