Newbie question
 

Are there any techniques a newbie such as myself should start with? A list of skills to practice would be very helpful.

Start with good ends on the beads. After that, it is all gravy.

I m trying to blow ornaments, maybe make some pendants and small sculptural stuff. Although some of the beads ive seen are spectacular.

It all starts with pulling nice, uniform, and thick walled points. pull a few hundred points till they are perfect both ends.

Then practice blowing out perfect spheres between points (bonus skills practice for using contour tubing and twisting it up uniformly before blowing).

Then practice cleanly removing the bottom point, and getting a nice termination.

then practice opening the top point and making a bail (you need an opening for spherical ornaments, so make the bail over/next to a hole).

If you want to make some that have a spire on the bottom, reverse the point removal order. Pull the spire, but leave the point attached and with air access remaining, then melt off the top point and make the bail, then let the ornament bench cool before removing the bottom point. If you let it bench cool, use a tiny flame, and pull the whole time you are melting off the bottom point, you can allow them to be fully sealed this way.

I always tell people that I'm teaching boro that making Christmas ornaments is fantastic practice for doing any more complex blown work.

Kevingreenbmx thank you thank you thank you!

Pulling points, pulling stringers, welding ~12mm blowtubes to larger stock, and drawing vertical lines then controlled twist pattern.
Not specific to ornaments but good initial skills to develop. I'm a bit odd and have made several ornaments using 9mm blowtube instead of pulling points. To each their own.

All the videos make this seem easy. Its not. So thank you all for the foundational blocks to practice.

Take a class if you can, learning this stuff from videos misses a TON of details and doesn't have someone there watching you to point out when you are building a bad habit.

A pipe maker once told me to make 100 spoon pipes with clear tube before you even buy your first piece of colored glass. I didn’t take that advice because I didn’t’ want to be a pipe maker. But I took the point. If you practice, until you are satisfied you can tell how pliable a gather of glass is by it’s color, before you start buying the $200lb colored glass.

Classes are great. Try to find a 5-8 hour one-on-one with a good teacher. Demos where a bunch of prep was done the day before were less instructive for me.

Here are some of the videos I have found helpful: Torch Lesson Playlist

Thaks KA!