Beachwalker Boxes: Unique Handmade Wood and Glass Boxes located in Austin, Texas
Like us on Facebook!
  • Home
    • Contact Us/FAQ
    • Sold Boxes
  • Wooden Boxes
    • Marquetry Boxes
    • Story and Poem Boxes
    • Handcarved Boxes
  • Etched glass and wood boxes
  • Cast Glass Boxes
  • Blog

A bird (egg?) in the hand. Snake Box. Golden Girl. A dirty, bloody job.

9/3/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Here is our cast glass bird and egg box, of a lavender pink glass, with a top of the same color with glass hands clasping an egg. The birds and egg are  22 kgoldleafed, and the branches are copperleafed. It's sitting in a curly maple base. Because people keep asking us: the top is ALL ONE cast piece. No glue.
Below, two new pieces just out of the kiln: an emerald-colored snake box which took DAYS to make. DAYS. Each snake was hand-made in wax, attached to a wax box, and all the scale and head detail was done by hand using a toothpick. Then  the wax piece was cast in plaster, the wax was melted out (hence lost wax), and it was filled with glass and fired (for 3 days), which is how we do all our cast glass pieces. Just in case anyone wonders why we attach a high price tag to them.
Also below, a new glass piece (also out of the kiln today): a sitting girl in amber-gold glass. This will sit on top of a wooden box. Didn't she turn out lovely? I was sure she wouldn't  fire correctly in the kiln... but then, oh, she did. And she took forever to make, too.

Picture
Picture
We're off to Midland for the season's first art fair! Tom and I are in sore need of total strangers telling us how wonderful we are (we love all you friends and family telling us, but you don't count). Below: a picture of how hard I work: my bleeding thumb on my dirty, plaster-covered hand from removing razor sharp glass from molds, holding a toothpick for delicately picking plaster off the cast glass golden girl. This is seriously what my hands look like all the time from working with glass: cuts, cuts, and more cuts. If you buy something from us, chances are it has some of my or Tom's blood in it.  And also, a picture of the box  we are giving (yes, giving) to the Museum of the Southwest for its fundraising event: an etched glass hummingbird painted and 22K goldleafed in the etch over a woodburned and painted maple base. The box is made of walnut and is hinged. You can buy it at the museum's auction on Friday (Sept 5). I remember cutting myself on this one, too. See you in Midland!
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Glass Body Parts! Also Roses and, of course, Tentacles.

8/30/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
.

Our lovely roses box, all finished with a dark wenge base and a clear glass top with an etched  hummingbird with dichroic extract fused into it for subtle glimmer that echoes the pink and green of the roses on it. Hello, but it turned out great. On to body parts!

Below, a few new things right out of the kiln:a box with faces cast in 4 different colors, one on each side that blended together beautifully. Aint that seriously creepy? But in a really pretty way? A head top is also shown, in a lavender blue, with 3 heads put together. This will probably go on a different box, since too much pretty creepiness would probably result from putting them together.
Picture
Picture
 And below, a top with a glass hand rising from it. Zombiesque!  Also, a new tentacles box in cast glass. Both hand and tentacles are in shift tint glass, so they appear different colors in natural vs indoor light. Behold! Ah, I do love tentacles. I feel a bug phase coming on, though. Beetles. Lots and lots of glass beetles


And we'll be at Septemberfest at the Museum of the Southwest in Midland, Texas next weekend. Come out and see us and all the other artists there!
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Damn, We're Good. More Gorgeous Boxes

8/16/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Another finished cast glass box- the swan box of lovely soft blue-gray glass got this beautiful dark walnut base that echoes the art deco curves of the swan. Just the wooden base is a work of art on its own (Tom is a fricking wood genius). These cast glass boxes are blood, sweat, and tears to make.

Below, our latest effort right out of the kiln- a glass box decorated with a leafy vine design ( I wish I had a picture of it in wax, because it took A LONG TIME to make the wax model- tons of little wax leaves, each detailed with a toothpick. The glass is a shift tint, so there are two pictures of it, one in natural light (where it's a pink/orange tint) and one in indoor light (where it's an olive green tint). It sorts of shimmers between these colors depending on how the light hits it. Cool, huh?

Picture
Picture
And another mermaid box- an aqua cast glass top in a box of bird's eye jarrah with turquoise inlay and curvy sapele legs- it's treated with oil and then epoxy so the sides look like they're dripping with water. Now Tom is sick to death of girly shit like mermaids and swans, so also below is a new etched glass topped box: an homage to the great Julie Speed's painting War Bride. This is glass etched on two sides (jellyfish on one side, skull on the other), with peppermint wood (a weird Australian wood) sides with a watery, swirly natural coloring, and a swirly blue painted base.
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Glass Roses, Swan, Flames. So Much Pretty.

8/4/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Here's the finished cast glass rose box! Several posts ago I put up a picture of this box when it was wax. As you can see, it worked out- pink and green glass flowed together beautifully for this effect. I think this will get a curly maple wood top with a single pink glass rose set into it and a curly maple base- a glass top might be too much. Holy crap, I can't believe I made that.
Below, a blue glass box with a rosewood top with a  cast glass mermaid on top, all in a delicate rosewood legged frame. Also, a ruby red glass box carved with flames. This will get a red top with a black glass bird and a black wood base.

Picture
Picture
And yet more! To left, a lavender/pink glass box with a raised design of glass birds on branches with leaves. I goldleafed the birds and copperleafed the branches and leaves. The bird on the top came out beautifully, but either the bird or the base needs metal leafing. I'm still trying to decide.
And right, a blue glass box with a clear/white glass art-decoish swan on top. This will get a dark curvy wood base, also in an art deco style. Hello, but we are rocking the cast glass boxes now. Look forward to frogs and tentacles in cast glass soon. And the fair art fair season is coming up: we'll be in Midland, Houston, Dallas, Austin, and hopefully more this fall. A full list of art fair dates wille be on our homepage as we learn about them.
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Cast Glass Shell Box. Also: Medusa and Koi

7/27/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
We are proud of ourselves- this cast glass box is really beautiful! The blue glass box and top both have a watery, dripping effect, and the pink cast glass shell on top turned out perfect. Tom is making a walnut base with wavy, curvy legs for it, and it's gorgeous. We're almost ready to start casting in lead crystal.

Below, a Medusa box. Medusa and snakes are woodburned and painted. The sides are yellowheart. The inside is lined with red suede, and it will be hinged. Next to it, a new etched, goldleafed, and painted glass for a box top- two koi. They were etched into the glass, then goldleafed in spots, then painted with enamel paint in the etch. This will get a watery colored painted base.

Picture
Picture
1 Comment

Cast Glass Nudie Pic! Also: Ravens, Frog, Wolf

7/14/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
More new cast glass: a beautiful aqua glass with a nude figure on top. She looked mermaidish to me, so I gave the box a wavy, watery design. As you can see at the bottom of the lid, these need some finish work, but they turned out lovely.

Picture
And here's a box in wax: roses and leaves all the way around the box. It took forever to make and attach all those little wax roses and leaves. This will be covered in plaster, then the wax will be steamed out so that there will be a negative mold of the whole wax piece in plaster. Then I'll fill it with glass and fire it. If even one of the petals doesn't fill with glass, or breaks in firing, the piece will be ruined. Glass is a harsh and unforgiving mistress.
I'm still trying to decide what will go on the top. More roses would be overkill.
Picture
To the left, a new glass-topped box made of wenge with bloodwood detail. The ravens were etched into the glass and then stained black. The base is leafed with 22K gold and copper in a sunset pattern, then epoxied to get a reflective effect from the ravens on top. Below, a new tall leggy box made of a gorgeous live-edged mesquite with sapele legs and a stone frog on top. And we're making another frog box- in glass- because we love frogs so much. Finally, below, a new Little Red Riding Hood Box, with Little Red in the winter woods woodburned and painted on top, and a wolf inside (both top and base are maple). The sides are padauk.

Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Cast Glass Boxes! Plus: Zigzag Legs, Rapunzel, Hummingbird

7/3/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Here is one of our first kiln-cast glass boxes! It's solid cast glass using the lost wax method. The lid has a glass shell cast into it in different glass. It does need some grinding and polishing to make it smoother. This will get a wooden base and legs, probably something like the legs on the zigzag box shown below, only curvier. More are coming as we experiment with different methods in the kiln. These take forever and a day to make: making a wax box and lid, pouring plaster mold material around them, melting the wax out of the plaster mold, prefiring the molds, then loading them with glass and firing them for 3 full days! Then the glass  needs cold working to remove the extra glass at the base and clean up any blips- the uneven look at the bottom  is due to extra glass that needs to be ground off.

Picture
We started making this box as a prototype for a cast-glass box, but it looked so great in design that we used beautiful woods (bocote for the sides and yellowheart for the legs, base, and top), and it turned out gorgeous. It has brass detail on the legs, and a bronze bird skull lid lift. Below, a new story box: Rapunzel woodburned on maple, with 22K goldleafed hair, leaning out her window. On the inside is a woodburned and silverleafed pair of scissors. The sides are yellowheart. Below, a new etched and painted glass-topped hummingbird box: walnut with a woodburned and painted maple base. It's hinged.

And why can't our parrot say "Peekaboo"? ALL the YouTube birds say peekaboo. It ain't fair.



Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Cast Glass Egg Boxes

5/30/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
We're starting glass casting this week! The amazing and talented Alan Stratton of As Wood Turns is making us a turned wood egg box, as seen in his video here, and in the picture to the left, so we can use it as a template for lost wax cast glass egg boxes. If you're interested in cool turning projects, I highly recommend you follow Alan's blog.

It's a doozy to cast this, though. First we need to make a two-part silicone rubber mold for both the top and bottom of the egg, and engineer the two parts so they sit together well in order to make a sturdy, symmetrical mold for each part. Then, we'll pour hot wax in each mold to give us a model of the top and the base in wax. Then a plaster mold is poured around each wax part with a reservoir attached to each for glass. The wax needs to be melted out of the mold once it has set. Finally, the molds are fired (for several days!), and then each mold is broken carefully apart to remove the glass egg piece. It's tough, because each plaster mold can only be used once!

We'll make wood and metal bases for these glass eggs. If we can get this system working, they'll be beautiful!

1 Comment

New Boxes for Artscape, and new carved tops- and... BABY CARDINALS!.

4/24/2014

0 Comments

 
Below are new boxes to debut at Artscape art fair in Dallas April 25-27. First, a new Little Red Riding Hood box- walnut sides, woodburned and painted maple top and base. The top shows Little Red walking into the dark forest; the inside shows a snarling red-eyed wolf. Also, a new handcarved, slightly heart-shaped walnut box with turquoise inlay and a snaky design in relief.
Picture
Picture
 And coming soon- new carved tops waiting for Tom to get off his butt and make boxes for them. He seems to think that a major bleeding finger injury is an excuse not to use that hand. First, a spalted maple wavy top: it looks like stone.Next to it, a curly myrtle top carved in one big curling wave, with natural purplish stripes in the wood. Gorgeous, if I do say so myself.
Picture
Picture
And we proudly announce that we are the proud landlords of a new family: 4 baby cardinals in a sturdy nest in the bamboo outside our studio. Behold our babies! They're ugly, but we love them.
0 Comments

Pandora and Eve: Curious Girl Story Boxes: Plus- Jellyfish!

4/10/2014

0 Comments

 
I've been thinking a great deal recently about the curious girls of mythology: Eve and Pandora. Here's a recent box effort: a Pandora's Box, with all the evils that plague humanity growing out of a hole in the top. Inside, of course, is what was left when Pandora shut the box: Hope, woodburned and goldleafed. The box is maple, woodburned (woodburning all those letters and leaves by hand took about 10 hours!) and painted, and the whole thing lacquered. It still needs some finish work, but it's fantastic.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Here is a new Eve woodburning for a box top- Eve holding the apple and spellbound by the snake. It's modified from a lovely painting by Lucien Levy-Dhurmer. Below, a new glass-topped box: an etched glass jellyfish painted and covered with colored epoxy. The sides are bubinga wood, and the base is silverleafed with sterling silver to reflect light behind the glass top. Also below, a pecan box with a woodburning on top modified from a Rossetti drawing- but I added a dog. These boxes will be for sale at Art City Austin this weekend, so come out to see them- and us!

Picture
Picture
0 Comments
<<Previous
Forward>>

    Author

    Tom Beach and Amanda Walker

    Tom works full time building boxes and entertaining and feeding pets.

    Amanda does the glass casting and etching and is generally busy having a midlife crisis

    Archives

    September 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012

    Categories

    All
    Art Shows
    Birds
    Boxmaking
    Cremains Boxes
    Dogs
    Fundraising
    Glass Casting
    Glass Etching
    Lost Wax
    Parrots
    Pyrography
    Reliquaries
    Skeleton Box
    Story Boxes
    Wood Boxes
    Woodburning
    Woodworking

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.