Test Results :: Sepia Unique #2

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - Over Silver Foil, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf, 5 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 6 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 7 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 8 - w/ Silver Glass Frit Stringer (encased), 9 - w/ Copper Green, 10 - w/ Opal Yellow, 11 - w/ Ivory, 12 - w/ White

I think that CiM Sepia Unique #2 might be the first CiM colour that I've tried that I really don't like.  At all.

This colour is so prone to bubbling that no matter where I worked it in the flame or how patient I tried to be, it was filled with tiny bubbles. I was a little disappointed, because I was sort of excited about the Sepia family of colours after experimenting with Sepia Unique #1, but this version of Sepia doesn't have nearly as much in common with that one as I'd hoped.  It's also sort of a bland, blueish/pinkish grey colour that just leaves me cold.

I do like the gentle, golden tan colour that it takes on with silver though.

The only real bright point in my testing of Sepia Unique #2 was this pretty, beer-hued brown tone that it acquires when used with silver.  In the bead on the left, you can see that the Sepia Unique #2 has turned the silver that pretty amber colour.  In the centre bead, the silver has turned the bead more of a Guinness brown, and has balled up on top of it and in places turned slightly blueish.  In the bead on the right, I reduced and encased the silver leaf, giving me both the pretty tan colour and an ethereal blue-purple around the silver.

Sepia Unique #2 is nicer as a base for reduction colours than it is as a base for striking silver glass colours.  It doesn't, however, do anything nice at all when used with reduction frit and pulled out into stringer.  I did get good colours out of my TerraNova2, but they aren't that evident in the picture.  Under silver glass seems to be the best way to use this colour, since afterwards it will be well-covered.

  

 

Sepia Unique #2 isn't a very reactive colour, and even the softer opaques (e.g. White, Opal Yellow) don't seem to spread on top of it much.

As with some of the other colours I haven't been super-fond of, once I'd made these test beads, I didn't have much desire to explore Sepia Unique #2 any further. If you discover that it's actually a great colour and that I am missing out, please let me know and maybe I'll give it another shot.