Winter Colour Diet - Session 5

Session 5 was very productive! I got two sets of test beads made (CiM Great Bluedini and Effetre Dark Violet) and even made quite a few focals. The bad news is that one of the beads I made cracked, which means I have NOT gotten to the bottom of my cracking issue... which means I am way less happy than I otherwise might have been. A few days ago, I blogged about what I thought was the solution to my problem. Since it clearly isn't, I've removed the post until I have the right answer and can write something that won't be misleading.

In any case, let's get to the rest of the beads.

This one was made with the last stubby bit of Mystic Beige I had left last week, and has Sasha's Silver stringer work on it. Its ends are decorated with SiS, and there are a couple of silvered Dark Ivory shards melted onto the surface. The Mystic Beige is a little weird in this bead, having fumed a yellowish colour.

Now, this is really not the most attractive bead. In fact, my first instinct was to pitch it into the garbage. The only thing stopping me is a reaction in here that I've never seen before. The core of the bead is Seashell Swirl with a little Striking Color Frit. Then, there is Sasha's Silver stringer work. That was reduced, and then for some unknown reason, instead of encasing it with Clear, I encased it with Light Brown Transparent instead. All of the silver glass stringer design turned a shiny copper-gold colour. I've never seen this before, so I was pretty excited, once I got past my first impression.

In the first picture, there are two different beads (top left & right), and their back sides (bottom left & right). I made these as an experiment to see if the design I've been repeating in the larger 1.5" lentils is shrinkable to a Med+ Nugget. It turns out that it totally is, which makes me really happy. And it might even inspire me to practice with that darned Med+ press a little more than I have been.

The other bead is an XL Straight-Sided Lentil. Both beads have a base of CiM Great Bluedini and have been rolled in Striking Color frit. There is fine silver mesh in there, and SiS around the ends. The big lentil also has some silvered Dark Ivory shards along one edge. It's difficult for me to not just blurt out all of my feelings about Great Bluedini, but I am restraining myself so that I will still have enough to say to post the colour tests I did.

This one is a base of Seashell Swirl, with a Twistie, Adamantium end-caps and SiS scribbly decoration. The Twistie was made from Mermaid, Artichoky and a striking silver glass colour. I wish I remembered which one, but I don't know for sure. It could have been Van Gogh Caramel or DaVinci Double Amber Purple. Either way, it doesn't really matter. I'm pretty sure that another striking silver would do more or less the same thing - all of the ones I have used have behaved similarly.

What's really interesting about the interaction between the twistie and the rest of the bead is the way it has pushed all of the Seashell Swirl's streakiness into a kind of warped honeycomb pattern. I really love this effect, but have to admit that the colour combination in this bead isn't really making me happy. I am going to need to do something about the colours in the Twistie in order to do something nice against the pink background.

This one is a bit of a re-run... I found a combination I like so much that I keep wanting to repeat it. It's a base of Seashell Swirl, rolled in silver leaf and then Striking Color frit. It's end-capped with Tamarind Unique, and then has some bands of SiS which I've violently swirled. There are some Ivory dots on this version of the bead as well, which I've been told don't really improve it. I gave it a flash of reduction before parking it in the kiln.

This one is a base of Tamarind Unique, rolled in Silver Leaf and then Striking Color frit. The end caps are Red Copper Green (Yum!) and then there are SiS scribblies on the ends and around the centre.

I really love Okey Dokey Artichoky. That's what the base of this bead is, and it's really neat. There are two different Twisties on this bead. One of the Twisties is the same as the one already outlined above. The other one was Artichoky, Seashell Swirl and the same striking silver glass as the other recipe.

The bead is a mottled green and blue, and because Okey Dokey fumes from Silver, there's some subtle fuming that almost looks like tea-staining. I stuck some silvered Dark Ivory shards to this bead and did my customary scribble around the ends with SiS.

I've completely run myself out of Mystic Beige, which makes me sad because I'll miss it, but happy because now it's gone and out of the box. I replaced it for the rest of the session with a few rods of CiM Great Bluedini to do some testing, but I've runout of that now as well.

For next session, I'm replacing the Mystic Beige/Great Bluediniwith Anise White. Everyone hates Anise White because it's shocky and not as stable as regular white, so I'm going to try to love it. We'll see how that goes :P

Here's the status of the palette, after Session #5.

• EFF Red Copper Green
• CiM Adamantium
• CiM Tamarind Unique (-1)
• REI Mystic Beige CiM Great Bluedini EFF Anise White
• EFF Okey Dokey Artichoky
• CiM Mermaid
• EFF Copper Green
• EFF Dark Violet
• VET Seashell Swirl
• EFF Light Brown (Transparent)
• EFF Pale Green Apple (Transparent)
• EFF Pale Emerald (Transparent)
• EFF Pale Aqua (Transparent)
• EFF Pale Ink Blue (Transparent)
• Staples: Clear, Black, Dark Ivory, Ivory
• Silver Glass: Assorted Silver Glass Colours, rods & frit
• Metals: Silver Mesh, Silver Wire, Copper Mesh, Silver Leaf, Silver Foil
• Dichro: Dichro on Clear (various colours)
• Goldstone: Gold Aventurine Chunks

I am also running really low on Seashell Swirl, Pale Aqua and Dark Violet. I made an executive decision last weekend that I'm not going to buy any more of any of the colours for the palette (although I may buy a few just to stash away for later) and am going to force myself instead to experiment and use other colours I've been accumulating. I don't mind getting rid of the Dark Violet because, frankly, it's one of my least favourite colours in this palette so far... but losing the use of Seashell Swirl and Pale Aqua is going to hurt.