Test Results :: Strawberry

1 - w/ Silver Leaf, 2 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 3 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 4 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 5 - Plain, 6 - w/ Plain (reduced), 7 & 8 - w/Peace, Ivory, Opal Yellow, Copper Green and Tuxedo

Reichenbach Strawberry (RL6213) is a bright, cherry red opaque that has just the slightest bit of translucency to it. I didn't really like working with this colour, because as you can see in the beads above, it tends to grey up with repeated striking. All of the smaller beads I made are fine, but the larger ones look just terrible. I didn't do enough experimentation to really get a feel for how to control the greyness.

This is an awfully pretty colour of red if you can figure out how to make it stay red, and it does have some interesting reactive properties.

Strawberry turns black where it meets silver leaf, and the silver leaf in the bead on the left has a grainy, webby consistency to it that is rather attractive. Reducing and encasing the silver removes some of the texture and doesn't really add anything nice to the effect. The silver over Strawberry after encasement looks a little like the surface of the moon.

Silver glass frit doesn't really do very well on top of Strawberry. A black line develops around the edges of the frit and sort of overwhelms it. In the bead on the left, I got some nice blues and turquoises where the black did not completely engulf the silver glass, but my TerraNova2 frit bead just looks kind've sad and yucky.

Strawberry has some interesting reactions with other colours, although they are not easy to read here because the Strawberry, in a lot of places, has turned almost completely a uniform dark grey colour. However, even through this yucky grey, some reactions are evident:

• Copper Green separates slightly on top of Strawberry, developing a thin, dark green line down the centre of stringer lines and faint translucent halos inside dots.
• When Strawberry is used over Opal Yellow, it causes separation in the surface of the Opal Yellow and a thin yellow line rises up from the Opal Yellow to surround the Strawberry stringer lines and dots.  When Opal Yellow is used over Strawberry, it separates very dramatically, and spreads out, curdling around the edges.
• When Strawberry is used over Peace, it causes separation in the surface of the Peace and a thin white line rises up from the Peace to surround the Strawberry stringer lines and dots. This reaction is less dramatic and less consistent than the same reaction with Opal Yellow. Peace separates on top of Strawberry, developing a thin dark line/dot in the middle of stringer lines and dots.
• Ivory curdles underneath Strawberry. On top of Strawberry, Ivory stringer lines and dots get jagged edges around them and develop fine, translucent centre lines/dots.

Here is a fun rainbow bead with Striking Red-encased Strawberry.