Test Results :: Marble

When I got the Marble rods, I found myself asking "How is Marble different from Marshmallow?" because the Marble rods are a similar semi-opaque white colour. After melting the Marble (although never having melted any Marshmallow) it became clear that it is different from Marshmallow in that it does not stay semi-opaque. On the CiM site, Marble is described as a streaky, marble-like white but I didn't get much in the way of streaks. It looks pretty white to me.

So then I felt the need to ask myself "OK then, how is Marble different from White?" since it seemed like I should be asking some questions, questions being the mother of answers and answers being what we are looking for when we test anything.

And sadly, the answer is that I only sort of know, because in spite of all of the testing I've done, I haven't yet bothered to test the staple colours that I test everything else with. This didn't really seem like such a huge oversight until I tested Marble, so I'm a little annoyed with myself. Fortunately for Marble (and for me) it is a very interesting colour, so not having done my homework can only really eat at me so much.

This seems destined to be a chatty post. Bear with me.

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 6 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 7 & 8 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory and Peace

In some of the pictures, Marble has blended right into the background. I'd like to say that I photographed Marble on a white background on purpose to demonstrate its inherent whiteness (or lack thereof) however the truth is that I just didn't think to get out the black plexiglass. I guess the next time I test such a light colour I really should, since some of these beads are sort of hard to make out.

CiM Marble is an opaque white that is very reactive with silver, and has some unusual reactions with other colours as well. It's a fairly stiff colour, and is sort of nice to use because of its smooth consistency.

Marble fumes a yellowish colour when used with silver. You can see the mottled yellow/orange/brown reactions in the bead on the left. You can see the yellow in the middle of the bead on the right, too, where the silver didn't cover the core of the bead. On top of Marble, silver goes a brownish colour as well, but then when it is reduced and encased as in the bead on the right, it takes on blueish and pinkish tints and goes pretty shiny. This is a pretty reaction (or at least it would be if the yellow had stayed hidden).

I had mixed results for Marble with silver glass. I really like the way the reduced silver glass behaved on Marble, and the sheen reducing the silver glass gave to the marble is really interesting in the bead on the left.  I swear I make all of these test beads the same way, and I had great success with Midnight just the day after I made these, so instead of blaming myself for this one I am going to say that Marble is much nicer as a base for reducing silver glass than it is for striking silver glass. One interesting feature of the bead with TerraNova2 frit is the way the Marble came up in little halos around the frit. I love that effect.

Tuxedo
I'm not really sure what was going on here, so you are going to have to work this out for yourself if you are interested. In the bead on the left, my Marble stringer got a lot of dark 'gunge' in it, and I have no idea if this is from a reactions or if it is because I was coming to the end of my propane. It's sort of suspicious that the Marble did this on top of all of the colours EXCEPT copper green, but weirder things have happened. In any case, the 'gunge' seemed to only fill the centres of the dots and lines on Tuxedo, which means that that the Marble separated on top of it.  If you try it, I predict you will either get two different consistencies of white, or that you will get what I got.  Let me know :)

When Tuxedo is used on top of Marble, the Marble rises up around it in little white halos.

Copper Green
On top of Copper Green, Marble separates a little, and when Copper Green is used on top of Marble, white halos rise up around it as well. Copper Green stays an odd, shiny yellowish colour with Marble.

Opal Yellow
When Opal Yellow is used with Marble, it seems inclined to blush pink. On top of Opal Yellow (apart from where it turned grey) the Marble seems to acquire some of Opal Yellow's pinkish yellowness.

Ivory & Peace
It's difficult to really discern anything meaningful from what I did on top of Ivory and Peace with Marble, and from the complete wash that was Ivory and Peace on top of Marble, but this seems to be the area of the bead that received the most blackening. There's not a lot of point in ever attempting white-on-white, so I'll probably never do this again so we may not find out if there's anything more to it.

I made some fun murrini with Marble (although I've just realized I didn't take any pictures of it *sigh*), and also used it underneath Midnight in my Midnight bead. On the whole, I liked Marble. It's got character.