My journey in glass started as a kid, watching the lampwork on Eastbourne pier for hours each day for the duration of my summer holidays.
Despite this, although I've done a good thirty years of stained glass & four years of fusing, I still haven't had a go at lampwork myself. It's time to change that!!!
I'd like to do a beginners' course- a day or two I guess, but would like to have a go at making animals, birds or maybe flowers, as they were the things that inspired me into my life of glass.
Do any of you know anyone in or near Kent who teach beginners to make things other than beads? I don't have a problem with glass beads, it's just that I'd like to have a go at something else... 🤔
A good teacher should be able to get you to the stage of being able to make balanced beads to a reasonably competent level in a day or two, depending on how quickly you pick it up. Actually getting hot glass to stick to a mandrel as a beginner is quite an achievement in itself! After that you will still need to practice, a lot, to develop your knowledge of the way glass moves when molten to build on your skills; just as in fusing, different glasses behave in different ways. Moving on to more structural stuff is really an intermediate technique.
I can't think of anyone in Kent offhand, but I know there are people in London who teach, if you are able to travel?
Jo Turner might be the one for you. She works in Ramsgate. https://www.facebook.com/turnerroweglassart/
Thanks Margram. I'll look her up.
Much obliged :)