If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may look at the picture below and feel a little 'ping' that something is missing. And, of course, you will be right. There's no test bead with black, and the only reason I can figure out for that is that I must have lost it. I lost my whole set of Evil Queen test beads only to find them a few days later, but having looked high and low for my Rhubarb/Tuxedo bead, I'm afraid it's gone for good. Since it's been at least two months since I made these beads, I figured I'd just post without it. I don't feel like backtracking and I need to move on. Sorry!
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 - w/ Copper Green, 8 - w/ Opal Yellow, 9 - w/ Ivory, 10 - w/ Peace
Rhubarb is a Vetrofond odd lot, and like all Vetrofond odd lots it seems to have a lot of variation inside its colour number. The Rhubarb rods that I used to make these beads are an opaque red on the outside and have a core that seems to be Ivory and Green, although that core doesn't really have any obvious showing effect at all when you use the glass. I have a whole other kind of Rhubarb with the same colour number that has a semi-opaque pinkish shell around the opaque red, but I haven't breached that bundle yet. When I get to it, I'll do some comparison between it and these ones. I also have a rod of Rhubarb that is almost entirely the pinkish semi-opaque, and it looks yummy in the rod but I haven't used it yet, either.
I think Vetrofond is on a quest to drive us all nuts. Enormous inconsistency. Hooking us on things like their Ivory and then failing to make more. Rods of glass that pop and separate every 2 inches when you heat them. Refusing to repeat River Rock, Parrot Green, Poppy, Orange Sherbet, Pineapple Sparkle and Key Lime. If I didn't love so many of their colours so much, all of that would be a real dealbreaker.
Anyway, this particular batch of Rhubarb is a very streaky, tomatoey red colour that is not very reminiscent of Rhubarb at all. It has a little colour variation in it, depending on what it is used with, which I'll highlight below as I go through my results. The rods were not very shocky, which was a nice surprise, since most of the rest of the 'cored' odd lots from Vetrofond are a huge pain in the ass.
Silver leaf bunches up on top of Rhubarb and forms little globules of silver. It also fumes the Rhubarb a greyish blue colour. When this effect is encased, it looks a little like I imagine our mountains and lakes look from space in wintertime when all the greenery is asleep, but is not very attractive.
Silver glass develops colour fairly well on top of Rhubarb, but has a dullish look to it, like it's only barely awake. In the bead on the left, some brownish halos developed around the TerraNova2 frit, and in the bead on the right, some yellow edging developed around some of the fritty bits.
On top of Copper Green, Rhubarb experiences some colour variation. You can see that in the left side of this bead, where the Rhubarb is sort of a mottled red/orange/yellow colour. The Rhubarb dots and lines have developed a subtle dark outline. This is a pretty neat effect, and I like it a lot. On the other side of the bead, the Rhubarb looks oddly pinkish and faded, different from how it looks in all of my other test beads, and a brownish line has developed around the Copper Green. On top of Rhubarb, the Copper Green looks more blue than green, but on the left side of the bead, underneath the Rhubarb, it looks green. This is the sort of interesting result that keeps me doing this testing.
Here, the Opal Yellow has struck a little in its lines and dots on the right side of this bead giving a bit of a textural illusion. On the left side of the bead, you can see that the Rhubarb has done a little separating, becoming slightly blotchy. Underneath the Opal Yellow dots and stringer lines, the Rhubarb has a sort of red/orange gradient going on.
There is no noticeable reaction between Rhubarb and Ivory.
On top of Peace, the Rhubarb seems to have thinned out a bit and gone a little more orange. Underneath Peace, it seems to have had a temper tantrum, and coalesced into angry dark red striations. The Peace stringerwork on top of Rhubarb is beautifully crisp and well defined.
Here is a fun bead with Rhubarb, Dark Ivory, silver, Intense Black and Ivory.
