Finding Inspiration — Flaming Hot Tips Tuesday

I spent the last day since Tuesday’s tip was posted try­ing to think where I find my inspi­ra­tion for my beads. Noth­ing spe­cific came to mind! I don’t ever really go LOOKING for inspi­ra­tion any­way, it seems. It just seems to appear spon­ta­neously out of my sub­con­scious when I sit down to the flame. I say “Self, what do you feel like doing today? What shapes, col­ors, pat­terns appeal to you today?”

Self will answer “Oh, I’m into blues today — let’s com­bine Bril­liant Blue with some strik­ing col­ors” or “I’m in a focal mood, maybe a cou­ple of land­scapes to start with, and use that new press you just bought as the shape” or “I don’t really know, why don’t we exper­i­ment with that new tech­nique we wanted to try? If it doesn’t work out we can always go back to plain round frit beads to get back in the groove!”

Of course, if Self is silent, I can always go to my note­books and flip through to see if there’s any­thing there that strikes a chord. Then, if all else fails, I’ll just make cane and twisties to use later, usu­ally using ran­dom com­bi­na­tions just to see what hap­pens with them. After all, it’s only glass!