Making the Dragon Fire Candle Holder

In this post I show the creation process involved in making the Dragon Fire candle holder.

The dragon medallion.

It starts with a 3 1/2 inch tall glass candle holder and a medallion design I drew a few years ago.

I start by forming the dragon and shaping the base. He looks kinda like a giraffe! Don't worry, breathing fire and sitting on a hoard of gold will change his looks ;-).

This is my first dragon with feet. To shape them I press a blob of clay onto a small sheet of glass and using a knife, upholstery needles, and a clay shaper, I give them toes.

The claws.


He has feet! Now I shape his wing.


Arranged on the base.


His hoard of treasure.

I add a border around the outside of the base and then brush the surface with mica powder. Next I add "torn leather" all over the remaining open surface.

Each piece is textured with real leather and torn before pressing into place. Now he's off to the oven for 45 minutes.

After cooling, using the the same mixture of "amber" from Amber Winds, I fill in the rest of the candle holder, pushing the clay into place with a rubber tipped clay shaper.

Here he is after a final baking. Now all that's left to do is give the leather surfaces a black and brown wash...

... And here it is all finished! The washes were added and I painted in some gold highlights.

Making the Amber Winds Candle Holder

My first candle holder design is going to be that of a silhouetted tree with it's leaves blowing in the wind. As you have probably guessed by now I really like the design of a tree caught in the wind with it's leaves blowing away ;-). This candle holder is 3" tall. I begin with a simple sketch taped to the inside of the glass acting as my guide. Each branch and twig are rolled by hand and carefully pressed on.

All the branches have been added and the trunk is filled out.

Time to form the leaves. I start with the veins, using two large blunt ended upholstery needles, I bend them into shape, add the sides and then with gentle nudges, I give the leaves their contour.

Six leaves have been added. Now I place the border. The thin bands are extruded and then the end pieces are hand shaped and textured.

Adding the final leaf.

Next I brush on a bit of dark gold mica powder for a pearly effect. Mica powder sticks wonderfully to raw clay. Then the glass goes into the oven for about 45 minutes.

The glass is cooled and I combine the "amber". It is easy enough to fill in the background and sides, but the leaves are a bit tricky. The clay smears over the leaves hiding the fine detail.

To clean things up, I brush over the tree and leaves with rubbing alcohol. The alcohol softens and dissolves the clay and the mess can be simply wiped away.

A final trip to the oven and the candle holder will be done.

And here it is finished.