Test Results :: Sherwood

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ TerraNova2 frit, 6 - w/ Silver Glass Frit Blend (reduced), 7 - w/ Copper Green, 8 - w/ Tuxedo, 9 - w/ Opal Yellow, 10 - w/ Ivory, 11 - w/ White

General Impressions
When I saw the rod colour of CiM Sherwood, a few other CiM colours popped into my mind as things that might behave similarly. It is a blue-ish green, darker and greener than Celadon. It is greener and lighter than Mermaid, bluer and darker than Split Pea and both lighter and bluer than Elphaba Unique #2.

Sherwood, in spite of those comparisons (and all of the other ones I'm likely to make as I write this) is sort of its own animal. The annealed beads are somewhat lighter and brighter than the rod colour, which is always an interesting surprise, and the reactions with other colours weren't quite like any of the other greens I've tested, but I've got something nagging at me, telling me that when I test Split Pea this weekend I will see some of the same reactions. I did a little work with Split Pea last year, before I was doing this testing thing, and the reaction Sherwood has with Ivory in particular gave me a feeling of deja vu.

The consistency of Sherwood is stickier and less stiff than a lot of other CiM colours. It's not as soft as Poi, it's not gelatinous like Desert Pink, and it's not uber-stiff like Mermaid, Celadon, Adamantium or a lot of the other CiM opaque colours.

Sherwood is full of interesting reactions. It really bears more study, but sadly, I don't have any left.

I keep toting this picture out, and it doesn't have any Sherwood in it, but it's the only bead picture I have with Petroleum Green in it, so I need to show it again. The bead on the left is Mermaid and Copper Green, and the bead on the right is Mermaid with Petroleum Green. The reason I am showing it is to illustrate how much brighter and greener Sherwood is than Petroleum Green, because someone looking at these pics might otherwise think that Sherwood is just a new Petroleum green, but it's not really the same, either in colour or in how it feels when you work it.

Reactions

Silver balls up and disappears on the surface of Sherwood the same way that it did for me with Celadon and Mermaid (although Mermaid also discoloured, which Sherwood did not do). When I reduced and encased the silver, I got a little bit of yellowing. This was faintly reminiscent of my experience with Celadon, only far less dramatic. It's an interesting effect, and when combined with other kinds of encased elements might be really interesting.

Sherwood makes a surprisingly good base for Silver Glass. I say surprising only because my personal experience has not led me to expect greens to be really cooperative when used this way. I got great colour (for me) out of my TerraNova2 frit on the bead on the left, the halos that appeared around it are pretty cool.  I also really like the way the reduction frit spread out on the bead on the right. These reactions were a little reminiscent of what I got with Elphaba Unique #2, but better.

Sherwood isn't so nice with Copper Green. The Copper Green went all pinky-silver and strange-looking, and the Sherwood developed a thin dark line down the middle. This bead could probably be improved by etching the Copper Green yuck away though. Celadon and Elphaba Unique #2 made Copper Green do this too, but both had some redeemingly interesting reactions in the bargain which Sherwood didn't manage.

Tuxedo bleeds just the faintest bit when it's put on top of Sherwood. You can see some halos around the stringerwork on the right-hand side of the bead. Sherwood does that thin green line separation thing on top of Tuxedo. Sherwood, on the whole though, holds its own against Tuxedo, where Celadon let more of the Tuxedo in, and Elphaba Unique #2 rolled over and let the Tuxedo dribble all over it.

Sherwood is the first colour I've tested to do this weird thing with Opal Yellow, but I wasn't using Opal Yellow in my baseline when I tested Mermaid or Celadon. The Opal Yellow on the left side of the bead has developed a neon green outline, and in the centre of the bead where the two colours meet, there is some decided webbing. You can see on the right-hand side of the bead, too, where there is a small amount of bleeding of the Sherwood into the Opal Yellow -- just the faintest green halo around some of the lines.

On top of Ivory, Sherwood does a couple of interesting things. First, it got an olive green webby line around the lines and dots that I put on. I am accustomed to a brown line reaction, or a black line reaction, or even a grey line reaction, but this is the first time I've managed a green line reaction. On top of Ivory, Sherwood also got that dark green line down the centre of the stringerwork.

On top of Sherwood, Ivory separates and develops a thin, translucent line down the centre, and goes dark around the edges, but that darkness just looks like a deeper green without much in the way of discolouration. The Sherwood did, however, get really streaky underneath the Ivory.

The best part of the reaction between these two colours has to be the odd, olive-coloured webbing in the centre of the bead. I like this reaction an awful lot.

And finally, on top of White, Sherwood does that dark-line-in-the-middle thing. White on Sherwood isn't all that interesting, but the way the two webbed in the centre of this test bead certainly is.

I managed to make a couple of fun things with my Sherwood last weekend, and here they are.