Karen’s Concepts

Ok, while I wait to take a nice picture for my header I thought I would get started.  I put up this blog to give people information on lampworking as well as tools and tutorials to get people started making their own glass beads. I thought that after I get enough information to get people started it would be cool to show different color combinations possible using italian, moretti glass and then maybe get into different types of glass.  My point?  What a better place than a blog to hold this wealth of information!

Ok, so you ask, What is lampworking?  Lampworking is basically making glass beads using a torch.  The term lampworking came from ancient times, more than 5000 years ago,  when glass was melted using a small flame, what people then called a lamp.  They would blow into it to make the flame hotter and then melt then glass.  There is a really good article on the History of Art Glass Lampworking, here, if you have the time and feel so inclined.  Lampworking today is done using different types of torch for differet types of glass, which I will go into. 

To get you started lampworking, there are several great books for educated reading.  I started with Cindy Jenkins’ book, Making Glass Beads, as many lampwork bead artists have.  Here’s the link to the book on Amazon.  I’ll put all the links labeled to the right on my blog for easy access later.  After you get started and over the fear of the flame and start making little blobs of glass beads, a more detailed book that has lots of eye candy and has some different techniques is a book by Corina Tettinger, Passing the Flame. I own both and still love drooling over all the pretty glass beads.  Corina also has “spotlights” on different bead techniques that are valuable information when you are ready.  Of course, this is just my opinion, there are other books out there but these are the ones I own and swear by.

You can also check your local art studio for classes on lampworking if your not wanting to teach yourself.  I tought myself with Cindy Jenkins’ book and then later took an intermediate class at my local art studio and perfected some of my skills, which I so needed at the time.  Some things you will just learn better by watching someone else.

I’ll post tools needed to get started lampworking in a separate post so look out for that.  Luckily for me, when I started, my local art studio had a kit already made up that I bought and didn’t have to search for things individually.  I’ll see what I can dig up for you to make things easier. ‘Til then, Ciao!!