Test Results :: New Violet

1 - Plain (reduced), 2 - Plain, 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

This Effetre colour is called New Violet (273).  I'm not sure which it is, but either we don't like change in the lampworking community, or we just like to prolong the excitement of getting new colours for years past their debut, so we have continued to call this one 'New Violet' long after it actually stopped being new. New Violet is a perkier, bluer colour than Violet 272 (which, presumably, we could now legitimately call 'Old Violet').

New Violet is a quite streaky colour, and is reminiscent of the purple colour that bathtubs and sinks came in, back in the 70s. The first house I bought had bathroom fixtures this colour, and I remember being amused by the novelty of it.  The colour is much less amusing in glass rod form, however it does have some interesting properties, which I will tell you about now that I have exhausted my supply of chatter.

On top of New Violet, silver does not really do much.  There is a little yellowing, signalling some reactive potential, but not much in the way of interesting happenings here.

However, when I used silver glass on top of New Violet, all kinds of dramatic things happened.  In the bead on the left, after reducing the silver glass frit blend, you can see that New Violet has abdicated all of its violetness in favour of becoming more of a grey. Why? I have no idea. It did not happen when I reduced New Violet without putting silver on it, and it did not happen when I put silver on New Violet without reducing it. Weird, right?

In the bead on the right, I did not get very satisfying colour from the TerraNova2 frit, however I did get very interesting separation lines in the New Violet underneath the frit. It has risen up in lighter-coloured halos all around the fritty bits.

On top of Tuxedo, New Violet not only separates, but really seems to do an interesting curdling thing. You can see in places where there almost seems to be texture in the New Violet lines because of the strength of the reaction. When Tuxedo is used on top of New Violet, the New Violet rises up around it in light halos, looking almost like a black and violet compound line/dot floating on top of a bed of violet.

New Violet seems to be one of those colour that, when used on top of Copper Green, keeps the Copper Green from greying up. Around the dots and stringer lines of New Violet, which has separated into two colours, there is also a more concentrated Copper Green 'shadow' around the New Violet stringerwork. As a result, it is a three-layer reaction, which is always a bit of a thrill :)  In the right-most bead, you can see a faint three-dimensional-looking border around the Copper Green dots and lines, but not nearly the same level of drama as you see when the New Violet is the colour on top.

New Violet is still streaky on top of Opal Yellow, but is otherwise not very interesting in that combination. In the bead where I used Opal Yellow on top of New Violet, nothing interesting happened at all.

Ivory spreads out and develops a really interesting streakiness on top of New Violet. When New Violet is used on top of Ivory, it separates the same way it does on top of  most of the other colours, but the effect is different somehow because of the light background because visually you see the superlight Ivory, then a lighter purple, and then the concentrated violetness of the New Violet pure in the centre of the dots and stringer lines.

Peace is sort of a different animal with this colour.  On top of Peace, New Violet loses all of its streakiness and looks like a more pastel, solid version of itself. Peace separates into two different versions of itself on top of New Violet, the outer band more translucent.

Here is a goddess bead made from New Violet.  You can see here how very streaky this colour is.  Its a very soft colour, so it's a bit frustrating for sculptural work, but I managed, so you can, too!