Test Results :: Earth

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, Opal Yellow, Ivory, Peace

Effetre Earth is one of the 'Cool Colours', and was new in 2011.  It is a rich, vibrant and streaky colour that  is veined with a saturated dark blue transparent. While using it, it developed mottled patches of turquoise that are especially pronounced when it is used with silver.

Some glass colours were meant to be used only in combination with or under other colours. In my opinion, Earth is a colour that really shines on its own -- its streakiness is really beautiful -- and is sort of difficult to like when used with other colours. And you'll see at the end of this post what can happen when you encase it. It is going to take some creativity to figure out how to use this colour to its full advantage.

Earth turns a dark brick red when it is reduced.

Silver really brings out the turquoise in Earth -- you can see it surrounding all of the silver in the bead above, on the left. The Silver Leaf has balled up and veined, attaching itself to the dark blue transparent streaks running through the Earth. When the Silver Leaf was reduced and encased, it turned an otherworldly mustard colour.

Reducing silver glass on top of Earth has more or less the same effect on the surface colour as melting Silver Leaf into it. I don't really like putting shiny blue things on top of other blue things, but other people might. I got a nice, dramatic strike in the purple ranges from my TerraNova2 Frit on top of Earth.

When you do stringer lines with Earth, it is streaky and veined with a dark blue transparent webbing. This is a pretty neat effect on its own, without even taking into account any reactions with other colours.

Copper Green separates on top of Earth, going darker in the centres of lines and dots. When Earth is used over Copper Green, the Copper Green is a vivid turquoise colour.

The edges of Earth, when its used over Opal Yellow, thin out slightly with a bit of a bleed. Opal Yellow on top of Earth develops a strange, veiny separated look to it.

Earth develops a mottled, medium brown line reaction with Ivory. You can see this both on the bead where Ivory was used on top of Earth as well as the bead with Earth over Ivory.

On top of Earth, the edges of Peace take on a turquoisey blueishness and translucency. The Peace stringer lines and dots look more solid in their centres than where they meet the Earth. There doesn't seem to be any strong reaction when you use Earth on top of Peace, except for a little blurring of edges.

Here are some fun beads with Earth:

 

In these beads, if you enlarge them, you can see that the dark blue lines that Earth has, which are what make it streaky, are transparent. When you Encase Earth, underneath the encasement layer it looks all billowy and organic - this is because the solid, opaque portion of Earth is criss-crossed with those dark transparent veins. It looks almost like blue clouds. This effect is more pronounced in the bead above than it is in the Mushroom bead.

  

Test Results :: Moana

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, Opal Yellow, Ivory, Peace

CiM Moana is a new Limited Run colour from Creation is Messy. It's a dark, blueish-teal semi-opaque. The colour of it is very similar to the colour of CiM Mermaid, but it is an opal like Rainforest and Atlantis. It is somewhat greener than CiM Atlantis, and far bluer than Rainforest. I think that this colour has very limited quantities, so if it looks like something you want, you'd better get some as soon as the shipment lands at Frantz Art Glass. This colour melted like a dream, and its reactions with other colours are very similar to the reactions that I got with both Atlantis and Rainforest.

Silver leaf turns a yellowish colour on top of Moana, and sort of disperses in little beads in a lacelike pattern. When the silver is reduced and encased, it turns yellow.

On top of Moana, my reducing silver glass got some interesting halo effects, however the blue on blue thing doesn't really do it for me. Not enough contrast. My TerraNova2 frit got some nice strike though.

Here we see how reactive Moana is.  Copper Green, Opal Yellow and Peace all separate on top of Moana, and putting Moana on top of those colours makes them rise up in halos around the Moana dots and stringer lines.  Moana separates into light and dark on top of Tuxedo, too.

Ivory is the neatest reaction of the bunch - it separates and curdles when used on top of Moana as well as developing a dark line reaction.  When Moana is used on top of Ivory, a dark brown line reaction pops up, in addition to a lot of muddy brown webbing and the Ivory rising up in halos around it.

Here's a fun bead with Moana:

Test Results :: Chocolotta Verde

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

Effetre Chocolotta Verde is a dark, greenish-brown opaque. It doesn't really look green when used in a solid bead, but you can really see how green it is when you put it on top of black. If I search back through my childhood memories for another colour like Chocolotta Verde, I come up with the 'stuff' that was at the bottom of the pond on my great aunt's farm. I didn't really like that 'stuff' very much, but Chocolotta Verde really appeals to me with all of its rare-earth-coloured weirdness.

In the bead on the right, I've reduced Chocolotta Verde, and it has turned a burgundy colour and developed a bit of a metallic coating. I think that this means that there is copper in this colour, and that reducing it brings the copper to the surface. This is confirmed somewhat by the fact that it forms a dark line reaction with Ivory (you'll see, below).

When silver leaf is applied to Chocolotta Verde it fans and spreads out, taking over the whole surface of the bead. It also develops a faint blueish cast to it. This is a pretty nice effect. However, when the silver leaf is reduced and encased, it turns a sickly, gross mustard colour.

Chocolotta Verde makes a better base colour for striking silver glass than it does for reducing silver glass. In the bead on the left, most of the colours reduced, however for some reason all of the little bits of frit in my frit blend that are Psyche did not reduce. Weird, right?

In the bead on the right, the TerraNova2 colour got a really attractive first strike. I never wait long enough when I'm testing the striking silver glass frit, but I can tell from the colour I did get that these two colours play well together.

Here is where we can really see the "Verde" (green-ness) of the Chocolotta Verde. For some reason, the odd green-ness of it really pops out at me when it's against other colours.

When Tuxedo is laid on top of Chocolotta Verde, faint halos pop up around the dots and stringer lines. The Chocolotta Verde dots and stringer lines on top of Tuxedo don't display a lot of separation but there is something a little odd about them, like the edges aren't quite uniform and are maybe a bit lighter.

When you use Copper Green on top of Chocolotta Verde, it goes sort of grey and dull and the edges of the dots and stringer lines look faintly three-dimensional. Not quite 'separation' but close.

Chocolotta Verde develops a brown dark line reaction with Ivory when it is used on top of it. Oddly, this reaction isn't much in evidence when Chocolotta Verde is the base colour.

There isn't much of a reaction between Peace and Chocolotta Verde, however on top of Peace the Chocolotta Verde looks almost transparent. All of the weird lines in it smooth out and it looks softer and greyer on top of Peace than it does on any of the other colours.

 Some fun beads with Chocolotta Verde:

 

Test Results :: Indigo

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - Over Clear, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf, 5 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 6 - w/ Reducing Silver Glass Frit, 7 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 8 & 9 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory and Peace

CiM Indigo is a dark, rich royal blue transparent. It's a very densely saturated colour, looking almost black in small self-coloured spacers. Even over Clear, the colour of Indigo is almost black-dark. In thin layers, however, Indigo lightens up enough for us to see it when it is used over other colours.

Silver leaf burnished into the surface and then burned off results in just the faintest spray of dusty-looking silver across the surface of the Indigo. When the silver is reduced and encased, it forms a greyish, translucent, ethereal blanket over the Indigo. I was a little aggressive here with my encasing rod across the too-soft surface of the bead, which resulted in 'rod tracks', but it look sort of cool the way the tip of the encasing rod dragged the silver in ripples. That might be worth doing on purpose.

Silver glass likes Indigo very much. The reducing silver glass frit shined up and got a beautiful brightness to it, and the TerraNova2 frit got some nice colour as well.

Indigo develops a light line around it when you use it on top of Copper Green. When Copper Green is used on top of Indigo, gets a bumpy look to it that is not quite what I'd call separation, but there's definitely something going on there.  Opal Yellow behaves very similarly.

With Peace though, there's definite separation, and it rises up in halos around Indigo dots and stringer lines. Indigo also bleeds into Peace - you can see how the halos that have popped up around the stringer lines are light blue instead of white.

Oddly enough, there is no dark line reaction between Ivory and Indigo.

Here are some fun beads with Indigo.