Winter Colour Diet - Sessions 2 & 3

Yay!  I got to torch twice last weekend, so I got an extra session in.  I'm going to talk about both session #2 and session #3 at the same time, since I don't have all that much really to show.

The overall tone of these last few sessions has been a little dismal because I keep making beads like this one and then have them split into multiple pieces.  This one held it together for almost a whole day before it self-destructed.  There is nothing quite like the feeling of spending eight hours melting glass only to discover that almost everything you did is only fit for the garbage.  However, I've soldiered on and am, in spite of these issues, really enjoying the palette.  Just so that it's clear, I don't think that any of the colours I'm using in the palette are causing these issues all by themselves.  I am almost certain that it's my clear that is the problem.  I've been trying not to talk about it much before I have all of the information, but I'll post with the whole story once I know the whole story.

Since I'm only making beads once a week, almost everything I will show here I am also showing in some other post in a different context.  These posts about my colour diet will contain information about which glass is in which bead and the general process used for building each of them, whereas in other posts they show up just as examples of when I've used a particular glass colour.

This one is CiM Mink, rolled in silver leaf.  I melted the leaf in and then thinly encased it.  There is SiS on the ends, and the raked leaf decoration is SiS overdotted with Taxco Silver Turquoise, raked and reduced.  The reaction between the Mink and the silver leaf is incredible.

This one is Mink, rolled in Striking Color frit.  I pressed it in my lentil press, but I had a little too much glass on the mandrel.  I cut up the side that overflowed the press and applied a silvered Dark Ivory shard to the other side.  I seem to be putting SiS on the ends of all of my beads lately, and this one is no exception.  A couple of the 'wings' formed by the cutting have been swirled and over-dotted with Light Brown Transparent. It's such a little mutant bead.

This one is Okey Dokey Artichoky with Striking Color frit, SiS and a silvered Dark Ivory shard.  I ran out of SiS, so I did the ends in regular Ivory, instead.  Note to self:  Pull lots of SiS at the beginning of each session.

I posted about this bead in my test results for Seashell Swirl.  The reactions in this little guy were a fun discovery.  It's a thin core cylinder of Seashell Swirl, rolled in silver leaf and then Striking Color frit.  The bead was reduced, and then thinly encased.  I then put a blob of Aion along one side and creased it with a steel paddle before reducing and encasing it again.  The ends are done with SiS (of course, what else?) and on the front there is a swirl over-dotted with Pale Emerald and some Copper Green dots.  I'm not very happy with the swirl, since its sole purpose is to conceal a really awful attempt at applying murrini.  I need more practice with that.

Neither the pattern nor the shape of this bead really came out the way I wanted, but it's my own fault... I keep saying I'm not going to make any more beads this long but this sucker measured in at 95mm.  Hopefully I'll be able to restrain myself from doing this again tomorrow.

It's built on a core of Reichenbach Mystic Beige.  On top of the Mystic Beige, I used Striking Color frit and some random trails of Copper Green.  I made the bead long by super-heating the glass and letting it slide down the mandrel, allowing gravity to stretch and swirl the frit and trails of other colours.  The ends are Mystic Beige, and there is scribbled SiS decoration on both the ends and in the middle.   The purply pink bit is a wrap of Red Copper Green, which is a pretty neat colour!  I haven't really done much with that one yet but I guess I'll need to take a closer look at it.

This one is the treasure of the last few sessions.  It is Seashell Swirl, rolled in silver leaf and Striking Color frit.  The end caps are Tamarind Unique, and there is SiS decoration at the ends and in the middle.  I swirled it almost violently, and then reduced it to make the silver pop.  I think I wish I'd added some ivory dots to break up the brownness of it.

Going into Session #4, here's where I was with the palette:

• EFF Red Copper Green
• CiM Adamantium
• CiM Mink  CiM Mermaid
• CiM Tamarind Unique (-1)
• REI Mystic Beige
• EFF Okey Dokey Artichoky
• 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

The only change is that I used up my initial bundle of CiM Mink and am retiring it so that I can play with CiM Mermaid.  I still have some Mink, and I think that once I'm out of Mermaid I'll go back to it, but I want to give this other new CiM colour a spin.

I don't know what I'm going to do when I run out of Striking Color frit.  I think I only have enough for my next few sessions at the torch.  I'm really enjoying using it!  If you have a chance to get your hands on some, grab it for sure.