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| I recently had someone ask me for tips on how to get good jellyfish mantles so I thought I'd share. I don't have any pictures of the process...this is simply a copy/paste of my response to that request.
First, I pull a striped cane that is exactly like the cane you would pull to make raised florals. Take a rod of white or other pale opaque and stripe it with a darker transparent. I used teal or rubino for the stripes quite a bit, and the teal worked really well over sky blue and the rubino looked really nice over dark rose. Once you have it striped with the darker transparent, melt the stripes smooth, then encase it with either clear, or a lighter transparent. I always tried to keep the color family the same. Clear encasement is not my favorite...it looks gappy. I would try sky blue base, dark teal stripes, medium blue encasement. Dark Rose base, rubino stripes, amber rose encasement, etc. I like yellows too, but they never sold well for me. Pull that striped cane down to about 2mm or less. Set aside. Once you have your base bead done, use a thin white stringer to draw 'C' shapes on your bead. Be careful to orient the 'C's so that the tentacles will be coming out of the open part of the 'C' and still have room to flow out before hitting another jelly. Soften the raised 'C's one by one in the flame and use a small flat tool like a dental spatula to press down on them to spread them out and thin them. You should get a rather shaded effect this way, and it makes them substantially larger while still keeping a sharp edge. Melt them smooth. Now, take your striped cane and 'paint' onto the white 'C' following the left outside curve of the white. Next, paint another stroke straight down the center of the 'C', then paint one last stroke down the right side of the 'C' following the curve of the white. Once you have painted stripes onto all the white 'C's, melt them so that the ridges are gone between the strokes, but not completely smooth. Turn your flame as sharp as you are able and after the bead has stiffened, spot heat the center of one of the 'C's and push the tentacle cane into the open part of the 'C'. I liked to push into the 'C' and down into the base at the same time. Move your heat away from that spot and concentrate it at the point of the tentacles where you want to melt them off. Burn off the tentacle cane and then you can use a tool to press the tentacles down onto the base of the bead, but don't press them flat, just make sure they are stuck well. Once you have all the jellies 'tentacled', I like to twirl the bead in the flame a while til all the ditches and ridges are melted smooth, but not completely flat. I like to leave them raised up as much as possible because it gives them a more 3-D look after they are encased. Then, just use your favorite method of encasing the whole bead in crystal clear and do your final shaping. Hope that helps somebody, and as always, fire away with any questions. I'm more than happy to answer. If I really need to add some pictures, I'll do that later on. I just wanted to get this up here since I've had quite a few people asking me. |
| When you are using that striped cane to paint the strokes onto your white 'C's, your goal is to cover the white over completely, so the striped cane is being swiped on in three strokes over the white 'C' to completely cover it. The only reason you even put the white 'C' there is to make your final colors more true and brighter. Since your striped cane is encased, if you didn't have that white 'C' down first before you painted the striped cane onto the bead, you would get gaps in the coverage and it doesn't look right. It is comparable to putting dots of white down before you put your dots of color for flower petals. It is just there to reflect light and to brighten whatever you are putting on top of it. None of the bare white will be visible once you have painted on the striped cane.
Here is a diagram. Your three strokes would be all the same color, of course, I just did them three different colors to help differentiate them. This diagram shows what you should have after you have added the 3 strokes of striped cane over top of the white 'C'. |
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| This diagram shows the angle and the spot where you heat the bead and push the tentacle cane into the 'C'. |
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| Basically for the tentacle cane, I take a fat rod of clear and encase it with white. Pull that down into fat stringer about 3mm diameter.
Cut it into 1" sections...however many you want, but at least 5. Get another rod of clear and heat the last inch or so, not to molten but get it to almost glow. Pick up the precut sections of white-over-clear stringer and one by one flash them in the flame and attach them to the clear rod. Here is what it will look like from the end (cross section): |
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