Test Results :: White

It's taken me more than eight years to get around to blogging about this very important staple colour. Effetre White is a very soft colour and turns transparent when it is heated to a molten state.

Reducing White does not alter the colour or surface finish of it.

Silver fumes White a yellowish colour.  Great if you want a yellow bead, sad if you want a White one. The silver takes on a greyish/pinkish appearance whether encased or no, although encasing it lightens the colour significantly.

I didn't get as much yellow fume in these silver glass beads as I did with the silver leaf tests, but there is a fair amount in the leftmost bead from when I reduced the silver glass.  White seems like a pretty indifferent base glass to use with silver glass, not really doing anything to enhance either the reduction or striking colours I tested it with.

When Tuxedo is used on top of White, the White separates underneath it and rises up around it in broad, subtle halos and makes the Tuxedo looks faintly bluish at its edges.  On top of Tuxedo, White spreads and looks faintly translucent. I also got some separation in the White right at the edge where Tuxedo meets Copper Green in the rightmost bead, but I think that is vestigial from the Copper Green and not due to the Tuxedo since it doesn't carry through.

Nothing in White prevents Copper Green from developing that army green sheen that it likes to get. When you use White on top of Copper Green, it separates and the Copper Green bleeds into it at the edges, making them a bit ragged.

There's not much else to say about the reactions here.  I should add that Peace and White, although both very "white", are not identically "white" - you can see Peace on top of White and vice versa.  My opinion is that the main differences between these colours are as follows:

• Peace is stiffer than White, and therefore a better choice if what you are doing is sculptural work.
• White is much less sensitive to flame chemistry and doesn't soot up in a reduction flame - if you are on a hothead, White might be a better choice if you're having trouble with Peace.
• White is less reactive overall than Peace, making it a less effective base for silver glass and a less volatile choice with other colours, but Peace has more interesting reactions with other colours.

I tested CiM Peace here, if you are interested in those results.

Here are some beads with White, although I think that some of them may have been made with Vetrofond White, which is not the exact same animal.  I am a sucker for a good deal and bought a lot of Vetrofond White when Mike Frantz had it on sale a couple of years ago.

Test Results :: 14K

Effetre 14K is an older Effetre odd lot that probably isn't available anymore, so I am sorry if any of what you see below makes you want some but you can't get it.  A quick google search turned up a couple of possible sources for some, but I don't know if there was anything real behind the links that google showed me.

14K is like a more subdued, less reactive, scummier version of Effetre Yellow (008).  It's really beautiful with silver, and not so beautiful on its own.

Reducing 14K doesn't have any effect on the colour or surface finish. You can see in these beads how much bubble scum I got with this colour.

On top of 14K, my silver leaf crusted up and then turned a pinkish colour. When I reduced and encased the silver, I got a blue-studded white layer under my clear encasement. 14K turns silver a deep coppery gold colour when used as the encasement layer.

This colour is a really beautiful base colour for silver glass.  Look at the colours that came up in my TerraNova2 frit, and the beautiful streakiness of my frit stringer test.

In the frit stringer test bead, I made stringer with 14K and my mixed silver glass reduction frits, and then used that stringer to encase a core of 14K. Without reducing the bead, I encased it all in a layer of Clear.

Other than its cool reactions with silver, 14K doesn't seem to be all that reactive. There's maybe a very slight amount of separation in Opal Yellow on top of this colour, and other colours seem to really spread on top of it, but that's about all I see here.

I haven't made all that much with this colour, but here are some beads that contain 14K.

Test Results :: Light Teal

Light Teal is a light/medium transparent green-blue colour. It's very pale in thin layers, but a satisfying medium teal colour when used alone or in thicker layers. It is a pretty soft colour for a transparent, making it a really nice colour to layer on top of opaques because it spreads really nicely.

Reducing Light Teal has no effect on its colour or surface finish.

Silver on top of Light Teal disperses pretty minutely - only a small amount of silver is visible on the surface of my leftmost bead although I coated it completely with silver leaf before melting it in. Silver turns yellow on top of light teal when you reduce and encase it. This is consistent with what happens when you do this on top of other blue-greens (e.g. Effetre Light Turquoise, CiM Celadon).

Here, you can see the Light Teal is a pretty base for silver glass reduction frit. I also got some nice purple out of my TerraNova2 frit here, although it is very dark in the picture and hard to see.

In these beads, you can see that Light Teal is a fairly reactive colour.  It makes Copper Green, Opal Yellow, and Peace separate and when Ivory is used on top of Light Teal, it gets a sort of creeping plague reaction around its edges.  Light Teal on top of Light Ivory is brownish around the edges.

Here are some beads that I've made with Light Teal.

Test Results :: Pastel Ink Blue

Some distributors call this colour Pastel Ink Blue, Some leave off the word 'Pastel' and simply call it Ink Blue, and Frantz uniquely calls it Lavender Blue Light.  For clarity, I'll add that it's Effetre #247, but I think of it as Pastel Ink Blue, so for the purposes of this post you will have to as well.

Pastel Ink Blue is a medium indigo opaque.  It is greyer and purpler (is that word?) than Periwinkle, and it is bluer than the Effetre light violet pastels (272, 273). Depending on what you use it with, it can look more grey than either blue or purple, so choosing the right accompaniments is very important, unless purplish grey is what you are after.

This colour is also very, very soft.  I think it is even softer than White, Ivory, and Opal Yellow.

Here in these self-coloured spacers, you can see that reducing Pastel Ink Blue doesn't have any effect on its colour.

Pastel Ink Blue is not adversely reactive with silver.  The silver spread out on top of it and can't even be seen in my leftmost bead apart from some little glints where it's reflecting the light and a bit of mottling it caused on the surface of the Pastel Ink Blue.  The mottling is pretty interesting to me - I haven't seen a lot of that with this test.  In the bead on the right, you can see that reducing and encasing the silver on top of Pastel Ink Blue has resulted in a soft white blankety effect, which is lacy where the silver has dispersed in a non-uniform way.

Reducing my silver glass frit on top of Pastel Ink Blue resulted in a brownish haze overtaking the base colour. In both of these beads, the Pastel Ink Blue has retreated from the silver glass leaving light halos around all of the fritty bits.  The striking silver glass made a good start on its striking sequence, indicating to me that this colour might be a decent base for silver glass.

This colour separates with Opal Yellow and Tuxedo, and it causes separation reactions in Copper Green, and to a lesser extent, Opal Yellow and Peace. On top of Ivory, its edges are hazy and sort of indistinct.

Here are some fun beads with Pastel Ink Blue.