Thinking, Perusing, Preliminary, Previous...

I should be drying my hair this morning instead of writing a blog post, the back of my hair will do it's weird wavy thing it does like in this picture of me in the Modern Art Museum (MoMa) in NYC over Thanksgiving - if I don't. But I'm throwing caution to the wind and writing it anyways!

I feel like I have a history with this Picasso. In 2004, I started making painted beads and a homage to Picasso based on this painting was the very first painted bead I ever succeeded in making!



I'd never seen it in person. It's a very large piece, vivid and lively.

I saw lots of art that day at MoMa and I'll share more with you throughout the week. There's so much to talk about I don't feel I can do it justice in one post.

Besides, I've really gotta go and dry my hair, I feel it curling up and it's getting time to go to work.

Uh-oh - I just looked at the time - I've REALLY gotta go!

Enjoy!

Re-stocking or Addiction?

I jumped out of bed this morning and ran to the computer - Darn! Too early to put in my order for the new color available from DoubleHelix Glass. Good lordy - why in the world does a new glass color cause so much excitement?


Take a look at this glass, it's call "Triton." Cool, huh? Can't you just see the beads made of this glass?

I tell myself I'm re-stocking.

True, I'm running low on Psyche and I'm allowing myself to "re-stock" every two months in order to stay within budget.



Ooo-ahhh look at the colors in Psyche! The iridescence in the purple is so lovely in person, this picture just doesn't do it justice. How can I let myself run out of it?!?

If I'm honest, I think it's a glass addiction and not true re-stocking.

Why?

Because I was in the local stained glass shop buying more sheet glass for my fused cabs. I haven't actually MADE one of them since my handpainted Red ART flower necklace.



But bUt BuT... I AM working on new cabs and didn't have any clear to cap off the tops.

(insert graphic of me hanging head in shame here)

Yep, that's one of the stages of addiction: denial.

Is there a twelve step for glass addiction?

Sepia Image Beads on Etsy

"Thoughtful" appeared in the the spring issue of The Flow magazine. The image of a young woman deep in thought is painted with enamels on glass and then melted onto a base bead at the torch. The gold was applied after the image was melted onto the bead.

As a beadmaker who paints images on beads, I'm always fascinated with the image-making process for glass. There's a fairly new process in fusing that applies a shellac onto glass. The image comes out sepia toned and is very detailed. I love the look of it! If you're interested in a how-to, here's a thread on Wetcanvas!

There are Etsy glass artists who fuse beautiful images onto pendants. I've listed a few of them and shown some of their pieces. Since I'm a hand freak (i.e., I collect hands in any form), I had to show a hand! I love hands! This one is Heart Line by the Ethereal Girls









PollyFusia's Jolly Roger is a creative twist on the pirate image that we're seeing all over. The color sets off the sepia tone of the image beautifully!






I like to see artists refining techniques to give a polished look to their work. Twenty Crosses by SquidGlass achieves that with a pattern that goes to the edge of the pendant. A nice detail that makes for a sweet pendant!

Niche Market Research: Anime North 2007

Over-Protective-Parent Spends Weekend Shadowing 15 year old Anime Fan! Those are today's headlines - yep, I'm back from the largest Anime conference in Canada! I might have mentioned before that my son (aka The Boy) is a HUGE fan of Japanese animation but if I didn't, I'm mentioning it again. He's been a fan since he was 4 and discovered Speed Racer and Pokemon I played Pokemon Stadium for hours trying to get my Togepei to evolve (yeah, I know Togepei is a weak Pokemon but how else was I going to play hard and still let a 5 year old win?!?)

This is the second Anime Conference for Over-Protective-Parent but it was the largest. I go to shadow The Boy and at the same time I can do some research into a niche market. The Boy made me into an Anime character shown above. I collaborated with him on some beads awhile back. I kept telling him I could make his Chibi style drawings into beads - and I did! An Anime "Con" might be the right place for them, but I needed to do some research.

I saw alot of food themed beads, donuts, tofu, cupcakes, strawberries made of polymer clay. Very cute and low price points. I saw a display of elaborate paper flowers made into pins. Some of the artists had made very small printings of their drawn characters and glued them onto the back of a glass nugget - then they attached a magnet or a pin. At dealers tables were base metal and enamel necklaces of berries, computer game "fruits" and letters - those were between $12 - $20 Canadian funds.

There was alot a separate area for the Art Show. The Art Show might be a more appropriate place for an Art Bead. Most of the beads I saw made into jewelry were inexpensive. A handcrafted Art Bead such as the one I've shown today would sell for between $70 - $100 Canadian funds. The painted beads are hand drawn then handpainted with custom mixed enamels onto a sheet of glass and then fired. But I'm not done with the bead once the painting is finished. A base bead is made in the flame and I melt the painting onto the base bead in the flame. It's quite a process but you can create small paintings in a bead - there's nothing quite like it. I have one of The Boy's characters in glass that will last thousands of years. That's some serious handcrafting!

I have that crossing the border thing to look into too - I have no idea how to start researching selling across the border in Canada! But in the meantime, I could sell beads that appeal to the Anime fan on line. I'll do some more research but I'm lucky to have a ready - made focus group (The Boy and his friends).

Have you explored a new niche market lately?