Lampworking

A few weeks ago I decided to order some basic lampworking tools and give that a try. Sort of a mini "fix" to play with glass in between hot shop sessions. This morning I had some time to sit down and give it a go. Had a lot of fun doing it and my beads didn't turn out too bad. I have to work on using the proper place in the torch. A lot of the beads look "dirty" and I think it's because I was putting the glass too close to the torch (I'm using a basic hot head setup right now and I've heard that can happen; it's also brand new, maybe there's a break in period?).

Anyway, here's the obligatory pictures. Full gallery can be seen here. Right now, I'm not properly annealing them (waiting to make sure I want to continue before I drop a few clams on a kiln) so everything is pretty much practice at this point.