Really like your first weight,it reminds me of something from my childhood but I am racking my brain to remember what.whatever it is ,I do like the psychadelic swirls ,great stuff.
Allan
Thanks Allan.I meant to write some notes about this last night but managed to delete the post and we had people coming for dinner so I had to run.
As you will know, typically carpet ground weights are made as follows..briefly...you make a cane, pull it out, taking care to ensure,the profile remains the same all the way through if possible, cool it down cut it into small pieces, lay it out, warm it up, pick it up on a post, melt it in and case it. (for those not familiar with the time scale of this precis, it could be two or three weeks work)
What I have done is to by-pass some of the steps, but it is still time-consuming). The cane is made from fifty or sixty thin strands of colour that have been pulled and cut up, sorted and selected. Each is between 1mm and 2mm. These are bundled together, warmed up, picked up on an iron, melted in and marvered. Then this multiple cane is brought to me hot, repetitively, and sheared on to the post. Shearing squeezes the hot cane and changes its profile each time, so although there is an element of uniformity of colour, there is a deliberate distortion as well. once the post is covered, the colour is then melted and marvered in and this further softens the original palette. Then it is cased.
With the fourth one, that Simone mentioned reminded her of a marble, I am using a variation of the same technique but the hot cane is trailed or wrapped around the post. It really looks like a cross between rock strata and a landscape seen through a fish-eye lens.
While there is obviously a commercial side to this, I am not sure whether I am temperamentally suited to becoming a paperweight maker, which requires an inordinate amount of patience nad perseverance! I am just having a lot of fun, playing with glass in my studio and I am not planning to repeat any of these on any appreciable scale. I made the gold one in the butterfly thread alone on a Saturday afternoon for "relaxation"! They are just one-offs, so they next ones may probably be completely different. In some respects that adds value in the sense that they are going to be few and far between, but on the other hand it means that they are not going to get a huge audience.
Mind you, I do like the idea of playing around with facets and a couple of years ago Martin Murray gave me a few tips, so you never know....its just trying to find the time though....!!
Thanks to all for your kind comments.