DRAGON Lampwork Glass Tutorial By Mary Lockwood

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1 Thank you for your interest in my Dragon Tutorial. This has been a labor of love and I hope you have a lot of fun at your torch bringing these dragons to life. I enjoy how they start out as some simple wraps around a mandrel and all of a sudden they appear out of nowhere little creatures from the fire. DRAGON Lampwork Glass Tutorial By Mary Lockwood This tutorial can be used with any combination of colors you are brave enough to try! The piece to the right has a cream base bead with black pearl scrolls. The dragon is dark amber with raku powder. Experiment and see what great effects you can get! Please read the entire tutorial through once before beginning to work. Seriously. GLASS AND MATERIALS This tutorial is written using 104coe glass but I have had great success with 96coe as well as 90coe. The construction of the bead would be the same with 33coe, but with different glass properties because boro is stiffer and less shocky. The dragon in this tutorial uses the following glass. There are no parts of this tutorial that depend on particular reactions or properties of specific glass so you can choose whatever you like. *2 rods of Effetre red roof tile. This is the dragon s base body color. You can use either an opaque or a darker transparent. *1 rod of CiM Dirty Martini. This is the base bead color. You can use either an opaque or a transparent. *1 stringer of silvered ivory. This is for scrollwork on the base bead. You can use whatever you like. 2mm stringer. *1 ounce of R108 Raku Powder. This is for speckling the dragon s body. You can use any glass powder, fine frit or enamel that you like. You must have adequate ventilation and a respirator mask approved for fine particulates to work with powdered glass or enamels. If you cannot work with powdered glass safely, it should be omitted from this tutorial. EQUIPMENT AND SAFETY Fire Extinguisher Good Ventilation Respirator Mask approved for fine particulates. Lampworking Safety Glasses Propane Outside Oxygen Tanks chained securely Bowl of water on work surface *You are responsible for your own safety! 1

2 TOOLS I don t use a lot of tools, but I have some very basic level tools that help make sculpting easier. There is one atypical tool on my workbench though. Here is the list of what you ll need. MAKING EYE MURRINI CANE Most of my customers say that the eyes are what make the dragons come to life. Here are the tools and glass you will need for making the eye cane. Disc nippers Graphite Paddle 2 Clean Steel Mandrels (punties) R108 Raku powder size 0 1 rod black (Hades) 1 rod copper green 1 rod opal yellow 1 rod pale amber or topaz (this will be your final eye color so use whatever color you want your eye to be on your dragon. You can substitute any nonreactive pale green for the copper green. You can substitute any nonreactive pale opaque for the opal yellow. You can substitute any pale transparent for the amber/topaz. You can substitute any opaque glass powder for the raku. MAKING EARS AND TAIL FAN Here is where that oddball tool comes in! Mini Mashers Needlenose Pliers 1 rod red roof tile 1 thin stringer of any color R108 raku powder size 0 Tandy Leather Camouflage Stamp C455 You can substitute any color for the red roof tile. This is the main body color of the dragon. You can substitute any powdered glass or enamel for the raku. More about that Tandy stamp on the next page! 2

3 This is a Tandy Leather Factory Stamp. It is the Camouflage C455 and retails for about $8.00 You can order it directly from For the dragons you will be using it to form the fine pattern of ridges in the ears and tail fan. I also use this for making fish fins and anywhere else I need a tight fan-shaped pattern of impressed lines. If you don t have this tool, or while you re waiting for it to arrive, you can substitute this step by using a razor blade, or by simply pinching the glass with needlenose pliers. Miscellaneous Tools Besides for the tools shown above, you can add whatever personal favorites you have that help you make the shapes and form the lines. I use a bent tungsten poker/rake for forming holes and ridges on the face. I use a curved wood gouge for forming the reticulations in the tail. You also need a hotplate or clean spot inside your kiln. 3

4 Let s make some eyeballs! 1. You will need a clean steel mandrel and your rod of black to start. 2. Form a gather of black the size of a small olive at the end of your steel mandrel. Do not allow the punty to go further into the gather than about 1/8. 3. Heat the outer surface of your gather and marver smoothly on a graphite paddle. You are shooting for centered with a round flat face. 4. Centered on the punty 5. with a round, flat face. 6. Heat only one side of the gather and roll just that hot side on your marver. Push harder on the outer edges than the center. You are forming this into an ellipse. (cat eye pupil) 4

5 43. Here is an angled view of your lens capped eye cane. See how the lens magnifies the image of the pupil? Magic. 44. Nip this eye from the cane right at the point where the eye starts to swell. If you look back at step 42 you can see where the eye swells out from the cane. Nip it there. You can nip the eyes into a bowl lined with a towel to help catch them. 45. A shot of your finished eye! Set this aside on your hotplate or a clean spot that is easy to get to right inside your hot kiln. You might want to prepare some extras. ;-) Let s make some ears! 1. Assemble your tools and glass! Mini Masher Needle nose pliers Tandy Leather stamp (or razor blade) A rod of red roof tile A stringer of any color A small amount of raku powder 2. Form a small gather at the end of the rod of red roof tile. This is about the size of a pea. 3. While molten, mash this gather with the mini mashers. 11

6 Let s make a dragon s head! a. First we need to pull a stringer! Heat a grape sized gather of red roof tile and roll it in raku powder. b. Melt the raku powder smoothly into the surface of the gather. Heat the gather to a nice deep glow. Allow to cool slightly to form a skin of stiffer glass. c. Use pliers to pull this gather into a stringer approximately 2mm in diameter. You will need about 12 inches of stringer. This will be used for facial markings and toes. 1. Form a gather of red roof tile about double the width of the rod. Let the gather firm up and reheat just half to glowing. You are softening this to form the snout. Usually this would get dipped in raku powder, but it made the pictures difficult to see. When you do this at home, dip this gather in raku. 2. Use mini mashers to flatten the softened half of the gather. Reheat this flattened portion. Turn the whole thing 90 degrees And mash again. This will have formed the rough shape of the snout.

7 Let s make a dragon! 1. The most important part of the base is that it be large enough to hold and counterbalance the dragon. Color and decoration are entirely up to you. Here, I have chosen to form a large conical bead from a whole rod of Dirty Martini. It is about 35mm tall and 20mm in diameter. The top hole is pointy and tapered, the bottom hole is dimpled and the bottom edge is flat. 2. You can decorate this base however you like. I chose scrolls of silvered ivory for the demo piece. Try to bear in mind you will be mashing this into a tab and only part of your design will be visible. Here, I ve chosen which area I want to be my front. Melt your decorations smooth with the surface. 3. Soften your bead in the flame and mash into a thick tab with parallel mashers. A more rounded press like a Kalera would be nice too. Just keep the bottom edge flat, the bottom hole dimpled and the top hole tapered and not dimpled yet. Don t flatten this too thin. It is easier to keep a fat bead thermally safe. 4. I made sure the design I wanted on the front of the bead was flattened with the mashers. Here is your base now we add dragon. 5. It is easier to make the body connect to a tapered top hole. Make a red roof tile donut bead two rods wide overlapping the top hole. You see the footprint above Make the donut large enough that when you melt it in you have a thick area where it joins the base bead and enough glass to form a nice dimpled top hole.

8 45. Guess what! You re done! The ears are applied to the bead last because they are the most delicate features. No matter what sculptural piece you are making, in this method of construction you add the most delicate pieces last. 46. Here is the back. You still need to bring a nice low glow to this whole thing to even out the heat and relieve as much stress as possible. Let the glow fade. Then, put it into your hot kiln and anneal it. 47. Here is the view from the side. You can see how flattening the back of the head helps get the area between the base bead tighter which helps with heat and durability of the bead. The bead is still hot in this picture. See below for the finished bead after annealing. 31