Test Results :: Iris Orange (Raku)

1 & 2 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace, 3 - w/ Clear dots, 4 - Plain (reduced), 5 - Plain

No one calls this colour "Iris Orange", to the best of my knowledge, in spite of that being the actual colour name that Reichenbach gave RL6208 when it was born. Instead, we all call it Raku, which is shorter and more meaningful since there's nothing particularly orange about this colour and the colours we get from it remind us of raku pottery. I think that you have to be either pretty loved or despised (or both at the same time!) as a colour to get a nickname like 'Raku' or 'Evil Devitrifying Purple', and I know that there are probably as many people who loathe this colour as there are those who love it.

That's for good reason. I find Raku sort of hard to work with when I am struggling with it to get those brilliant colours. I am consistently unsuccessful at striking it and never get the beautiful pinks, purples, and blues to stick in it that I see some of the people who are really handy with it getting. However, even if you can't yet get the brilliant colours out of Raku, I still think it's pretty lovable for its reactions and for the more subtle colour changes you can achieve without a lot of effort.

In the bead on the right, you can see what I usually get from Raku when I try to strike it in small beads. Some blues, maybe some greens.  If I reduce the Raku (the leftmost bead), I can get some brighter blues and some shiny pinkish brown. Neither of these are what I really want when I start the bead, but they are both sort of awesome in their own right.

Something else that is sort of awesome about Raku is that you can trap its colours under an encasement layer, and even if you mismanage it the way I did here, you can still get some nice pastels in dots or flower petals under Clear.

Tuxedo does not do much on top of Raku, but if you look on the bead on the right you can see that Raku struck more readily on top of some colours than others.  On top of Tuxedo, I got gentler blues and greens and the brownness of the Raku migrated into the centre of my stringerwork dots and lines.

On top of Raku, Copper Green separated and dark turquoise coalesced in the centre of my dots and stringer lines, and a  crusty pinkish effect took over its edges.  When I used Raku on top of Copper Green, it spread out quite a bit, and got a mottled, 3-dimensional look. It also made the Copper Green quite dark and rich-looking in between the spready Raku bits.

On top of Opal Yellow, I got a gentle strike from the Raku, but a strange, lingering brownish effect that almost looks like a shadow underlaying that colour change.  You can also see that the Opal Yellow has risen up around the Raku in halos, for an extra border around the Raku stringerwork. Opal Yellow on top of Raku separates and intensifies in colour quite dramatically.

Both when used over and under Raku, Ivory turns brown, almost black. It also curdles and separates in a dark and murky way. The interesting thing for me here is that after Ivory has finished being all moody because the Raku is spreading around on top of it, it seems to facilitate a really nice colour change in the Raku. On top of Ivory, I got a wider range of colour than I got over any other of the base colours I tried.

The reaction between Raku and Peace is very similar in appearance to what happens with Opal Yellow. Behaviour specific to Peace is that it appears to change from white to look greenish yellow on top of Raku and yellowish when used underneath it, probably from the silver in the Raku fuming it.

My favourite way to use Raku is as a border for my mushroom beads. I love how dark I can get the brown to stay in its pre-striking stage, and then how some traces of rainbow show up in it no matter what I do.  Here are some examples of that.

And here are some Raku goddesses. These are 100% Raku, and I have overstruck it, but I like the organic streakiness and the earthy pastels I got from it a lot.

 

Test Results :: Opal Yellow

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, Ivory and Peace

Effetre Opal Yellow is one of my favourite colours, and is on my list of colours where, if it were to suddenly be no longer available, I would be a very sad girl indeed. Opal Yellow is a very stable base colour, the only weird thing about it being that it tends to blush pink when either silver is added or it is struck repeatedly. It's versatile - there's almost nothing that you would want do do with a glass colour (apart from encase, since it's opaque) that you can't do with Opal Yellow. It makes a great base for silver glass, and because it is not super-reactive, it can be used in combinations with most other colours (with the possible exception of colours in the 'sulfur' family, like Ivory) without worry.

Here you can see how the Opal Yellow has gone quite pink after adding the silver. It's more pronounced in the bead on the left. The silver leaf when left unencased kinda sits on the surface of Opal Yellow and doesn't do anything all that magical. The appearance of it is not improved by encasing it - it turns it a light pink colour that is sort of  lost against the yellow. OK, so there's one thng that Opal Yellow isn't so good at. :)

Opal Yellow loves silver glass. It's a great base colour for both striking and reducing silver glass colours. In both of my test beads, the silver glass got great colour and did exactly what I expected it to do.

When Tuxedo is used over Opal Yellow, it bleeds. You can see a faint blueish stain around my Tuxedo stringer work in the bead on the left. On top of Tuxedo, the edges of Opal Yellow look sort of indistinct and sort of like a milk moustache.

Opal Yellow is another colour that keeps Copper Green from getting that greyish film on it. My Copper Green in these beads looks bright and beautiful. The most interesting thing about Copper Green and Opal Yellow is the faint line that develops between them. When Opal Yellow is used on top of Copper Green, it develops a faint dark turquoise line around it. When instead Copper Green is used on top of Opal Yellow, the line that forms is more of an orange colour. In both cases, it is the colour used as an accent that develops a faint separation reaction.

We've seen this before in my test results for Ivory and Dark Ivory, but Opal Yellow and Ivory don't so much get along. Ivory tends to go grey on top of Opal Yellow.

Peace dots and lines on top of Opal Yellow get a rosy orangey look to the edges and separate slightly. As a result, they almost disappear on top of the bead. When Opal Yellow is used on top of Peace, it seems even more inclined than usual to blush a pinkish colour.

In this bead, I used Opal Yellow as the base colour for the frame. I then liberally striped it with Silvered Ivory Stringer. The rod of Opal Yellow I used here was from a strangely pale batch, and it really reacted with the Silvered Ivory, resulting in it having a very aged appearance to it.

 

This fun set is made with KUG Pea Green, CiM Phoenix, EFF Periwinkle and EFF Opal Yellow. I love the reactions in these beads, which seem to be mostly due to the Pea Green. I haven't tested Pea Green yet, but will someday soon. Kugler Pea Green used to be known as ASK Mediterranean Olive.

This is Opal Yellow with Precision 104 Black Pearl. I love the reactions.

This one is Opal Yellow with a rainbow wigwag, rainbow murrini, and Hades decoration.