Improving Your Photos: Graduated ND Filters

What nobody ever tells you when you begin to post your beads or other crafts online is that you are going to have to become a photographer and a Photoshop or GIMP guru as well as a crafter, business person, marketer, and other related occupations. (No, I don't know how to do all that gracefully; if I did, this blog would be published regularly instead of in fits and starts.)

For the most part, my photography routine works well. Crop to size. Adjust color to as close to the bead as I can using levels. Resize to 1000 px square, and run unsharp mask. But sometimes that routine just doesn't work. Since I have been procrastinating doing some work for my day job, I have been searching out GIMP tutorials to share. One of the simplest is a lovely video tutorial on creating a graduated ND filter, which enriches the colors of your photo when they are washed out.

Here is my original picture. Not bad, but not great, either. Well, let me say that this isn't really the original--I've already cropped the picture to zoom in close. Otherwise, though, I haven't done anything to the image.

Next, I went ahead and changed the colors using the Color --> Levels command. This command lets you adjust the color levels using a histogram, and lets you fiddle with the colors until they more closely approximate the colors in your original beads.
I used to use the automatic white balance eyedropper, but now I just use the slider bars in the histogram (it opens up when you click Colors -->Levels) until the colors look natural.

Only some times they don't. I've found there's lots of ways to make the colors pop, but one of the simplest is to add an ND-Filter. The tutorial creator does a good job of explaining how to do this, so I will just add my results here. However, if you have trouble following the video, let me know and I can walk you through it.

The final result:

Try it and see if it helps your photos!
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Happy Holidays!

Yes, I have committed the ultimate blog sin: not updating for nearly a month. Mea maxima culpa. It was that whole Real Life thing--you know, having a full-time job that has seasonal busy spots--combined with not planning ahead appropriately for those busy spots. I'm sorry!

What I am doing: spending Christmas at my sister's house and spending more time in her studio than she is--the poor kid is barking like a seal with a cough and sleeping every second she isn't at work.

Here are some of the experiments: I was playing around with Frogsong's wonderful tutorial. Frogsong does some lovely beads, and created a technique-based tutorial. Since I like to do structured organics, I was all over that one! So I have been playing with placement and color, as you can see. I like the layered look!

Here are some more.
Over the next couple of weeks I will be listing these on Etsy (as focals) or on 1000Markets (as pendants). Stop by either place and check them out!

Creative Slump III

I continued with Gwacie's assignments, and have dragged a couple of others into playing with me on The Glass Haven. Here's the newest pictures:

Gwacie's assignments were these: Make the longest tube bead you have ever made, make the bead with the most colors you have ever used on a single bead, and make the teeniest weeniest decorated bead you have ever made. Well, I figured that the long tube bead would be good for using up the shorts that inevitably collect when I'm done with a color. When I am going to keep using it I fuse the short to the next rod, but at the end of a set I can get lazy. So I wound a bunch of complementary colors at random on the mandrel, and added stringer in whatever color I grabbed first. The bead's a skosh over 2.5" long, which isn't the longest bead I have ever seen, but is either the longest or one of the longest I have ever made. It's as long as my longest bead release dipping lid, for sure.

Then I went for the weeniest bead. It is hard using a normal-sized rod to get a teeny tiny footprint on the mandrel, but with care I managed it.
Then I rounded the bead, which is surprisingly harder than it sounds when you have such a small amount of glass on the mandrel, and added dots. They're alternating, and are a bit cockeyed. I need to try this again! But I got a 2mm wide bead out of the exercise, which I thought was pretty tiny.

Finally, a bead with the most colors I have ever used. Id on't know if the dense white frit counts as a color, or the black base for that matter. For the rest, I just grabbed all my excess stringers and started striping. I have to say that I liked the bleed effect so much that I made a set in the same design! It should go up on ETSY tomorrow.



Meanwhile, it's my turn to come up with challenges for the ongoing SLump Game. I've got until Friday, though.

Happy Halloween!

I didn't make many Halloween-themed beads this year--a few spiders and candy corn, but that was it. However, many other beadmakers did, including some of the amazingly talented Southern Flames beadmakers.

You can see their work here, at Flame Tree Glass's Halloween Contest page. There's information on the main pane, and on the left there are two .pdf files with pictures of the entries. All I can say is WOW, WOW, WOW! at the imagination, creativity, and quality. These people went ALL OUT. Puts my candy corn in the shade, for sure --- but I'm in awe!

Some of my favorites: The Trick or Treaters, by Marcy Lamberson:

Raven's Last Temptation, by Koi Creek Beads


In sculpture, there's Stephanie White's Graveyard:



And a phenomenal boro life-size skeleton by Doug:



Go over to Flame Tree and look at ALL the entries -- they're beyond incredible.

Creative Slump II: Side Trip down New Glass Lane

Saturday was the first meeting of the Southern Flames lampworking group that I have been able to attend for a while. Meetings are most often on Wednesday nights, and very often I am teaching on Wednesday evenings.

It was a fun meeting. During the meeting, we had a new visitor--Brad Shute of Striking Color. He brought samples of his new silver glass, and offered his odds and short ends at a very reduced price. They looked lovely! I decided to try it, but, as I have had mixed success with the silver glasses, I thought I would invest in only a quarter pound.

After the meeting, Marcy Lamberson (StudioMarcy) and I were the only two who took him up on his offer. We walked out into the chilly night, over to the back of Brad's truck. He pulled out a scale, and three cardboard boxes full of short ends. We began making silly jokes about getting our glass "Crack," complete with parking-lot dealers and careful scales. I should say that

Brad was very generous in his reading of quarter pounds and pounds -- he gave me more like half a pound of glass. Marcy bought a pound, and her total was likewise a good bit over her specified amount. We all shook hands, made more jokes about midnight goods handovers, and headed out to our respective ways. I went to the last part of the Open Studio night at Duckbill Studios, and Marcy went home.

Well, I got to try the glass on Sunday, which distracted me from Gwacie's assignments. I have had hit-or-miss results with many silver glasses, and in general find that *for me* they aren't worth the price. I do well with Taxco and Rocio Silver Mist, but the new Terra and other glasses just never work as well for me as they do for many others--it's purely my technique. So I approached Brad's glass with a combination of determination and trepidation! I didn't have much torch time, but I made a wanna-be barrel and some sprees.

The barrel, alas, broke through the bead release before I finished shaping it, and appears to be permanently fused to the mandrel. This is the one bad thing about middle-dipped mandrels, IMHO; one's occasional plant stakes are much shorter. But the silver glass produced absolutely beautiful colors with almost no fuss.
The glass does not like to be encased, I found, at least not with Diamond Clear. It's technically COE 104, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is compatible with all 104 glasses. You can see the cracks in the spree beads, feh and double feh. So: no or only very light encasing, where the ratio of clear to base is smaller. The barrel is encased, too, but there were no cracks because the clear was less of a percentage of the whole bead.

So that took up my torching time on Sunday, and is bringing back some of my enthusiasm. Brad's glass gets a solid thumbs-up sign from me, as well. I am teaching Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday I want to go vote (IF YOU CAN, GO VOTE EARLY. THIS IS AN HISTORIC ELECTION NO MATTER WHO YOU BACK--PLEASE PARTICIPATE!). Friday, though ... time to work on assignments and custom orders, and maybe some more of Brad's silver glass.

GTT Cricket --thumbs UP!

I am in LOVE. With a torch.

You'd think it silly, being this much in love with a torch that is technically a step down from the torch I have now, a Bethlehem Piranha. Dogmaw of Dogmaw Glass reviewed the Cricket, and when I saw that review I knew I had to try it. The Cricket is Glass Torch Technology's latest entry level torch, with only five ports instead of the seven their previous entry-level torch, the Bobcat, had. In terms of price, the Cricket is a clear winner. The Bobcat runs $195. Both the Piranha and the Betta are made by Bethlehem (the Betta replaced the older Piranha), but both torches ran in the $300-$350 range, whereas the Cricket is on special, introductory pricing now ($139) and will reach a final price of $167.

However, price isn't everything. Glasswork tends to make you either patiently Zen (Naos and Nikki Carollo come to mind, two stellar beadmakers who prefer to work on a HotHead torch) or a speed and fire junkie. I am inherently impatient, so I have to join the chant of "burn, baby, burn!". I want the most torch for my setup, but I can't afford tanked oxygen, nor would it be safe to use it in my current location. Tanked oxy in my breakfast nook? That would be a resounding NO.
However, Dogmaw noted that in terms of heat and speed that the Cricket outperformed her Betta; and as the Betta is the newer version of my Piranha, it was a safe bet that the Cricket would outperform my Piranha, too. And it did. I hadn't played with borosilicate for a while, but I made some glass pendants and hollow shapes with the Piranha, and then with the Cricket. My experience matched Dogmaw's--while I didn't time each bead as precisely as she did, the Cricket was significantly faster.
When I turned on the second oxygen concentrator, I had to be careful not to burn through my mandrels fast! Borosilicate melted reasonably fast, Moretti transparents just wilted, and Moretti whites and ivories were like buttah. I'd have to dial this torch down far to work with Satake.

The flame can get bushy and then move down to a true pinpoint. I could make larger pieces with the Cricket than I could with the Piranha, including a freeform drop fan pull, and shaping was easier because of that wide flame. (I'd like to try a teardrop shape next.)
I could also do smaller pieces with ease, including buttons. Pendants were a snap, as were large hollow beads. And the Cricket has a sweet spot, which, oddly enough, is harder to find on the Piranha. Striking was easier on the Cricket than on the Piranha, and so was reducing. Mmmmm, some of the colors I got .... wow. While we're on color reaction, raku in soft glass works amazingly well on the Cricket.

The reason the tiny Cricket can perform so well is that the Cricket was created to maximize its use of a 5 lpm oxygen concentrator, and on two oxycons this little torch really rocks, whereas the other torches on the market were intended for use with tanked oxygen. If I had a Regalia oxycon, or tanked oxy, I suspect that my Piranha would work better (or that I would be dreaming of a Lynx). But I don't, and I have other things to spend money on--heat envy only takes me so far before I bump into economic and practical reality. So, overall, I have to echo Dogmaw's grade. As a professor AND as a lampworker, I have to say that the Cricket has earned an A++. I think its only downside will be that it is fussier and more prone to clogging, as are all GTT torches --- but I haven't had any problems yet, and regular cleaning and running the candles at the suggested length will help with that possible problem. And I always have my trusty Piranha as backup!

Best Bead Release

Finally I have gotten to try the bead release sample I was given at the Down the Street Bead Show by the owners of Forward Motion Arts. This is the release that they formulated specifically for higher humidity areas. Most of the releases out there are created in the inter-mountain West, where it is generally very dry (and OH, how I miss that lack of humidity!). The problem is that for those of us in more humid areas, the release flakes and pops and generally misbehaves.

I can't claim to have worked with it extensively, but so far the Best Bead Release is living up to its claim. It has passed at least three tests. 1) It flame-dries well, with minimal popping or flaking. 2) It air dries well, and does not flake or crack even after sitting on the mandrel for a solid week. 3) It stood up to boro work. I have not pressed much with it, and when I did I found that it flaked about the same amount that a mixture of Foster Fire Smooth 'n Tuff and a smidge of Dirty Looie's (which, alone, is one of the worst releases I have ever used, but which seems to add something good to Smooth 'n Tuff, go figure). But that was with flame drying, and at least the release didn't produce the sludge that sticks to the ends of beads.

Will post more as I try it, but thus far the Best Bead Release has a cautious thumbs-up from me.

I have Applied For ...

the Indie Craft Experience show here in Atlanta. Both Art of the Firebird and I are applying, but separately; the booth size is so small that we really can't share a table. We do plan to put our tables together, though, so we can use the same credit card machine.



They wanted some pictures, and so I gave them pictures of my loose beads. They also want finished jewelry, so I re-photographed some of the jewelry and fan pulls that I've made. Everything is sterling silver, of course, except for the fan pulls, which are brass.

It sounds as if it would be fun to do, though in the current economy I hope we break even. I did spectacularly well at the last Down the Street Bead Show, but that was before the economic bail-out!

At the Show III: Peyote Stitch

One of the things I value most about any conference or convention, whether it is in my professional field or my crafting field, is the serendipitous discovery of new ideas. I always come away exhausted (Dogmaw and I had drinks and dinner at O'Charley's on the last night of the show, and were in bed by nine-thirty!), but bursting with ideas. As I fell asleep I was thinking about what I wanted to make, and how I could accomplish a new design, and many other things.

Among the items I saw at the show were amazing examples of peyote stitch. I had known about it for a long time, but had never really taken any interest--until I saw some phenomenal examples at the show, both from vendors like Dogmaw Glass, and from attendees like the man below. Check out his necklace!



And a close-up:



The beauty of peyote stitch is that it is portable. More than that, for me at least, it combines the feel of fiber art with glass--you're making fabric out of glass!

Here are some links I have found for peyote stitch instruction:

Even and Odd Count Peyote Stitch Instructions (From Suzanne Cooper).

Bead and Button Peyote Stitch Tutorial (PDF)

Beltana's beads: Tubular Peyote Stitch

(VIDEO) Karla Kam: Peyote Stitch Bracelet

If you haven't tried peyote stitch, these are some places to start.

Show Postmortem

By Friday, I was getting pretty worried! Here in Atlanta we've had a pretty severe gasoline crunch. It hasn't been as bad as the problems in Tennessee, but it hasn't been pretty, either. People have reported waiting in lines up to forty minutes long for gas, stalking fuel tankers, and even seeing owners of small stations carrying shotguns. It was a mess by anyone's standards, and I was afraid it would mean no patrons at the show.

While it wasn't the highest-grossing show ever, we actually did pretty decently, given the circumstances. Unusually for me and my partnership with Art of the Firebird, who makes awesome beads, I was the top seller of the pair of us. I think my style is just "fall like". I need to find a way to translate that into spring and winter shows, though! One of the things that helped all of us is that, while there were six lampwork booths at the show, not one of us had precisely the same style. Some people, like Dogmaw, had things that nobody else had--her shank buttons were wonderful!

And no matter if you make tonnes of money, make nothing, or something in between, it's always fun to do a bead show. We got to talk with other vendors that we see infrequently, and see what's out there, and just hang out with some very cool people. Dogmaw of Dogmaw Glass was next to us, and we had a fine time. What's not to like?

Here are some pictures of our booth. Note the new lights that Frostfire's husband made!

Preparing for the Show

As I wrote yesterday, I'll be at the Down the Street Bead Show this weekend, with Dogmaw of Dogmaw Glass and Frostfire of Art of the Firebird. We're looking forward to a great show!

The last few weeks I have been busy creating more beads and bead sets, and I have some that I am very excited about. One of the things that a friend does in the last few days of creative time before a show is to spread out all her inventory by organizational idea, and see where the "holes" are. If you display by color, make sure you aren't overdoing the blue to the exclusion of the yellow; if you display by shape, make sure the lentils or the rounds aren't edging out the other styles.

However, by the day before the show, it's too late to be making more beads and have them annealed and cleaned in time for the opening. So I'm preparing all the last-minute items, in between doing my Full Time Job. Some of the things that need to be done before a show are:

*Making sure all my beads are properly inventoried, priced, and tagged.
*Packing my show suitcase--beads, business cards, receipt books, change envelope, tools, displays, pens, tape, extension cords, extra light bulbs, and what-have-you.
*Washing the tablecloth and reapplying fire retardant.

Frostfire's husband has built us some better lights this year, and we have bought a banner! As she has obligations at her full time job until after the show has already begun, I will meet her later this afternoon and pick up the lights, the table topper, the banner, the credit-card machine, the bed risers for raising the table, the display pieces that she keeps, and her beads. I will get everything set up in time for the show's opening, and she will join us when she can.

There are going to be some wonderful vendors at this show, so I am looking forward to a fun-filled weekend! And the next weekend, I will be in the Rail Arts District of Scottdale (between Decatur and Clarkston), at Amalgam Arts, for their Sunday Trunk Show. See you there!

Hiatus Explained

My apologies for not being "around" virtually for a while. The last two weeks held both registration and the first week of classes, a new adopted dog, and a trunk show in Ellijay, GA.

Art of the Firebird and I went up to Ellijay on Saturday to do a trunk show at Beaded Couture, run by Lisa Barraca. It was a blast! AoF had hurt her arm, so she described lampworking and pointed out beads, and I did demonstrations and taught a couple of people the basic fundamentals. There was a lot of interest. The demos caught the eye of the husbands who came through, too.

Baby Steps, Fine Tuning the Mind, and Creativity.

Over on The Glass Haven and other lampworking boards there's been some desultory discussion about custom orders. The basic positions seem to be:

* Custom orders pay the bills but are not exciting, and can inhibit creativity because they have made what was fun just more work.

* Custom orders are good ways to keep your skills up during dry creative spells, or are not a problem because the process itself is so much fun.

I vacillate between camps. Right now, for example, I'm feeling unexcited. I think mostly that's because I am feeling overwhelmed. This week, but it is also registration week at my university. Later today I have a faculty meeting. It would only take an hour, but because my university is spread out over two--soon to be three--cities, and I don't live in the "home" city, the drive will be a total of 3.5 hours. Tomorrow I need to work registration most of the day, and again on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons and early evenings. Friday we have our departmental beginning of term session, and Monday classes begin. In my lampworking world, I have a trunk show coming up weekend after next, and a show in September. In the middle of all of that is my custom order, and so I find myself putzing, resisting, and not getting ANY of the work done -- which makes me feel overwhelmed.

How can one break out of that? Ironically, I know that I enjoy both my workaday job and my lampworking, and that when I can buckle down to DOING those tasks that I will not only enjoy them, but will jumpstart my creativity for new and continuing projects in both worlds.

So I am taking a leaf from two principles. The first is breaking down tasks, into baby steps, seven to ten minute jobs. I can't get the whole house clean, but I can fold the laundry. I can't turn on my torch this morning, but I can put away the glass I bought, neaten my supply cabinet, and make my workspace a pleasant place to get to. I can't finish my syllabus, but I can find two article references. And the like. All are small, accomplishable steps that make me feel more in control. (FInishing the blog entry after a few days' hiatus is one of those baby steps!)

The second is fine-tuning my attitude. I don't want to empty the dishwasher. Bleargh. But I do want to have a pleasant kitchen. If I tell myself that I am making a pleasant kitchen, that's more appealing than emptying the washer. It's better to make things interesting and manageable for students rather than slogging through a syllabus. It's better to be making a calm peaceful state and an enjoyable weekend rather than planning the first night (because having a plan NOW means a calm, peaceful weekend in which I can torch.) Not being able to torch means that I can be resting after last week's sustained torch time. And working on a custom order means that I can be productive while my brain begins to think of new ideas.

How do you handle these issues?

More Bead Spam

Some of the other things I did this week. Well, besides slogging around in 100 degree weather and feeding an endlessly hungry fawn!

Of Fawns and Glass ....

And, of course, 130+ pound Great Danes who think they are teeny tiny itty bitty dogs. You can see more pictures of the Dane and the fawn at my sister's Fawn Folio (see left navbar). Jet, the fawn, is absolutely darling--and a real pig when it comes to carrots and lettuce and grass. It took him a while to learn to trust me. I was actually of two minds, because frankly the fewer humans he trusts the better, if he's going to live wild. But he;s such a loving little critter, and comes over and gives tiny sloppy fawn kisses when I'm not looking. I
know that a lot of that is pure looking for food--after all, I have given him his bottle and his carrots, and his lettuce, and the treats--raisins and nuts and other dried things.
He'll come up to me now when we are outside--the other day he was racing around with Draco, who is so huge I keep him in sight when he's loose on the property lest he inadvertently scare one of the neighbors. He does not like the neighbor who holds the property next to the tract my brother-in-law holds out near Karnes City, so even though he's an utterly gentle lummox I watch him when we're on the home place, too--just in case. Anyway, he and Jet had raced around like mad things,
and Drake was utterly blown. Jet was just getting started--yet he came right up to me (food? food?) and then wandered off. While most of the time Jet comes in--and, believe it or not, is starting to behousebroken!--sometimes he stays out all night.

While my sister is at work I have gotten to play in her studio, trying out presses, glasses, and frits that I don't have myself. As a result, I've done mostly frit beads--one does not want to use up other people's stock of fine silver foil (at $15.00 a pack), mesh (at $7.00 a square) or rare glasses. I have blown some shards for her, and want to do a few more -- she has a wider blow tube than I do, and it makes blowing the shards easier. I need to get one that diameter! I had thought it would make blowing the shards harder, but it was easier. Anyway, I've had fun with Bullseye glass, seeing what colours I want to order. I like the earth tones, and the blues. Vetrofond seashell swirl and raku frit remain a favorite, of course,
but some of the BE reds, pinks, and blues are lovely. I made some this morning that are peach-coloured before the kiln; we'll see what happens when I pull them out of it this evening.

There's another Vetrofond oddlot named "Moon Rock" that also does beautifully with raku, and it matches the tonality of seashell swirl. I made a large tab of that, with some SIS to finish it off. Anyway, though the pictures are a little dark--I haven't figured out the white balance with a background like this--here's the eye candy I promised--at least the first installment.