Ask Studio Marcy ~ Online Coaching: Witchy Woman Face with Pam of My Cabin Creations

Pam Dansie of My Cabin Creations/Wild Sage Lampwork has offered this wonderful witch who is ghastly green and has a lovely black wart on the end of her nose. Pam's Etsy shop can be found at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=91518 .

To be honest, I tend to make more "cute" style beads, so this was kind of fun to look at and to see how I could answer Pam's requests to make her more like the Oz Wicked Witch

Here's what Pam wrote:
"Hi. My original vision was the Wicked Witch of the West kinda long mean face. Well obviously I ended up with the shrunken apple kinda face. I wanted a longer nose and chin but didn't want to fool with it more, worrying that I would totally mess it up. The hair is made with white and grey twisties that didn't come out right when I put them on. I wanted to put black where the eyes are and a flower on the hat. I didn't do the eyes because I should have done it before the hat and the flower was just another way to mess it up. So any help is great. I think the wart would have looked better in green maybe. Thanks Pam"

So let's take each of those comments separately.
1. How about starting out next time with a longish bicone type shape for a head? It would start you out with a longer more narrow face, and almost a blue print for adding the other features.
At the bottom, you can add some extra glass for a long chin. Where the bicone gets wider, that's where your nose and cheeks go with room for your mouth.

2 I'm not sure what the problem was with the hair? I thought you did a good job with it. If you want it to look a little more straggly, you can encase your cane with clear, before you twist it. The clear provides a little more separation between strands. I'd love for it to be more visible and stick out more around her face.

3. You figured out what to do with the eyes already. And here's one extra little pointer. If I'm making eyes with a white background and a pupil type eye, then I'll make the initial white dot and wait until almost the end of the bead to add the black pupil. Otherwise, the pupil melts in and doesn't stay where I placed it.

4. A flower on this witch's hat would have added a touch of whimsy. If you're worried about losing control, perhaps it could be done as soon as you make the brim. I'm hoping that when you're doing a sculptural bead, that you aren't rotating her in the heat like a traditional beadmaking style, but moving your hand so that the heat hits all directions of the bead all the the time.

When making a sculptural bead, often you have thinner and thicker areas. This creates problems with keeping every part warm enough, so it doesn't crack. I tend to add the thinner and more fragile parts towards the end, so they have less chance of getting too cool. And because of this, sometimes the order of feature placement doesn't seem as logical to new sculptural beadmakers. But it really is.

5. And finally, let's address the black wart on the end of her nose. I like it. If it were green, it wouldn't have stood out. And because she doesn't have other black features competing with it, this makes it more visible and add a focal point to bring the viewer's attention to her withered face.

Blog readers, what do you think? What would you do differently. Pam and I would love to hear what you have to say. Please feel free to comment.

Tomorrow, I will show my version of this witch face and discuss what I did. To add variety, I've made it as one of my bobbleheads. Stop by for another twist on this subject.