1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 6 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 7 & 8 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace
Effetre Spanish Leather is a streaky, stable dark reddish orange colour. It reminds me a lot more of ripe tomatoes or hot chili peppers than leather -- if the name had led you to believe that this colour was in any way brown, it has tricked you.
Spanish Leather behaves fairly predictably as compared to other reds and corals, although the consistency is a little stiffer than Coral and the texture less 'grainy' if that makes sense to you. It is a bit of a striker, and when it is allowed to heat and cool repeatedly, it can turn quite dark. You can see this on the ends of some of the beads as you look through the rest of this post.
Spanish Leather does not develop any noticeable effect from being introduced to a reduction flame.
Silver has a very interesting appearance on top of Spanish Leather, turning blueish in some places and yellowish in others, and hazing a little on the surface. When the silver is reduced and encased, the interesting effects are lost and you are left with just a silvery net effect on top of the dirty brown Silver/Spanish Leather reaction.
Silver Glass likes being on top of Spanish Leather. In both beads, a strong brown/black line has developed around the fritty bits. You can see in the bead on the left that I got nice pinks and purples from the TerraNova2 frit. It's too bad it sort of clashes with the Spanish Leather itself and that the colours don't gel better.
In the bead on the right, the reducing silver glass also developed colour nicely and because the blues of the silver glass has good contrast with the base, looks quite nice on top of Spanish Leather.
When Spanish Leather is used on top of Tuxedo, a shiny, greyish line appears around the dots and stringer lines. This line is lighter and shinier than the line that pops up around it on top of Copper Green.
Spanish Leather and Copper Green have a reciprocal dark line reaction between them.
Ivory spreads out a little on top of Spanish Leather, but apart from that not much of interest occurs between Spanish Leather and Opal Yellow, Ivory, or Peace.
This sculptural goddess bead was made with Spanish Leather, and illustrates the richness and streakiness of the colour.
And here are some fun beads made with Spanish Leather:
My beads turned out with metallic blue and the spanish leather went a dark wine colour - What happened
ReplyDeleteHi there :). I am not sure what might have happened. Your post made me think of the following questions:
ReplyDelete1. Are you 100% certain that what you have is Spanish Leather? If so, where and when did you buy it?
2. What kind of torch are you using?
3. When you were working it, what type of flame did you melt it in?
4. What other colours did you use with it?
Hi Melanie! Bex here from Bex Beads. Have you ever noticed a difference in the appearance of Spanish Leather rods? I have a bundle labelled Spanish Leather, but it looks nothing like the other Spanish Leather I have seen. It is duller and redder, very much like Hawaiian Clay or maybe Rosewood. Have you come across this type of variance with this glass?
ReplyDeleteHey, Becky! :) I have not had a dull batch of Spanish Leather, but while I've bought it a few times, I have no way of knowing whether all of those times were from the same or different batches. The poster who commented ahead of you ended up realizing that she had thought she bought Spanish Leather but it was actually mislabeled Red Copper Green. Could you be dealing with a problem like that? My Spanish Leather has always been summer tomato-coloured. Have you tried melting any to see what the worked colour looks like?
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