Test Results :: Earth

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, Peace

Effetre Earth is one of the 'Cool Colours', and was new in 2011.  It is a rich, vibrant and streaky colour that  is veined with a saturated dark blue transparent. While using it, it developed mottled patches of turquoise that are especially pronounced when it is used with silver.

Some glass colours were meant to be used only in combination with or under other colours. In my opinion, Earth is a colour that really shines on its own -- its streakiness is really beautiful -- and is sort of difficult to like when used with other colours. And you'll see at the end of this post what can happen when you encase it. It is going to take some creativity to figure out how to use this colour to its full advantage.

Earth turns a dark brick red when it is reduced.

Silver really brings out the turquoise in Earth -- you can see it surrounding all of the silver in the bead above, on the left. The Silver Leaf has balled up and veined, attaching itself to the dark blue transparent streaks running through the Earth. When the Silver Leaf was reduced and encased, it turned an otherworldly mustard colour.

Reducing silver glass on top of Earth has more or less the same effect on the surface colour as melting Silver Leaf into it. I don't really like putting shiny blue things on top of other blue things, but other people might. I got a nice, dramatic strike in the purple ranges from my TerraNova2 Frit on top of Earth.

When you do stringer lines with Earth, it is streaky and veined with a dark blue transparent webbing. This is a pretty neat effect on its own, without even taking into account any reactions with other colours.

Copper Green separates on top of Earth, going darker in the centres of lines and dots. When Earth is used over Copper Green, the Copper Green is a vivid turquoise colour.

The edges of Earth, when its used over Opal Yellow, thin out slightly with a bit of a bleed. Opal Yellow on top of Earth develops a strange, veiny separated look to it.

Earth develops a mottled, medium brown line reaction with Ivory. You can see this both on the bead where Ivory was used on top of Earth as well as the bead with Earth over Ivory.

On top of Earth, the edges of Peace take on a turquoisey blueishness and translucency. The Peace stringer lines and dots look more solid in their centres than where they meet the Earth. There doesn't seem to be any strong reaction when you use Earth on top of Peace, except for a little blurring of edges.

Here are some fun beads with Earth:

 

In these beads, if you enlarge them, you can see that the dark blue lines that Earth has, which are what make it streaky, are transparent. When you Encase Earth, underneath the encasement layer it looks all billowy and organic - this is because the solid, opaque portion of Earth is criss-crossed with those dark transparent veins. It looks almost like blue clouds. This effect is more pronounced in the bead above than it is in the Mushroom bead.