Test Results :: Sea Mist

CiM Sea Mist is an appropriately named, pale blue, cloudy, transparent colour. I found it a little bubbly and scummy, and since I don't use a lot of pale transparent colours in my work I had some trouble figuring out what to do with it.

Here you can see the reducing Sea Mist (the bead on the right) doesn't really change its colour. That bead does look a bit darker, but that is because I use a dark background and the bead is smaller than the bead on the right. Sea Mist is not completely transparent.

I didn't do my frit stringer test with this colour, but since it turned the silver foil a golden colour when it was used over top of it, it might have worked. If you are curious, give it a try :)  I use a homemade frit blend with a random, motley, ever-changing collection of Double Helix and TAG reduction frits.

You can see in the leftmost bead that the reducing silver glass has fumed the Sea Mist with a yellowish tinge. Apart from that, there's not much to say about these beads. I think Sea Mist makes a pretty average base colour for silver glass.

Tuxedo spread on top of this colour and looks pale around the edges.  I got some separation in Copper Green, Opal Yellow, and Ivory when those colours were used on top of Sea Mist.

Here's a gobstopper bead pair made with Sea Mist. I used it as the base colour as well as in the encasement layer on the raised windows.

Test Results :: Dark Zucca

Effetre Dark Zucca (EFF426) is a somewhat muted medium burnt orange colour. I'm working my way through a pound of it and I've really enjoyed it in my palette.  It's darker and has less colour variation than Effetre Light Zucca, and it is lighter and more orange than Effetre Spanish Leather.

Here is a picture that shows it in relation to some other colours. I didn't have any Spanish Leather left, but I picked out some others that will hopefully help you place it in the palette.  Effetre Light Zucca is a little lighter than Dark Zucca, a lot brighter, and streaked with yellow (which I love!). Effetre Coral Mango is a bit lighter and brighter as well, as are CiM Phoenix and CiM Sunset.

Dark Zucca is a pretty straightforward colour. It doesn't do a lot of streaking or mottling, and reducing it doesn't change it. It does get a brownish cast to it in places, but it's not clear to me what causes it and how (if it's even possible) one might avoid that or make it happen intentionally on only a part of the work.

Silver fumes Dark Zucca a dark greyish brown colour, and in the leftmost bead above you can see that the silver also forms a lacy crust on top of Dark Zucca and looks bluish in places. When the silver is reduced and encased, the Dark Zucca's colour returns to normal and the silver continues to look blue in places and that blue deepens and intensifies.

I rather like the way reducing silver glass frit looks on top of Dark Zucca. I got pretty colours from the frit, and the dark outline that the fritty bits get from the reaction with Dark Zucca really make them pop. In my TerraNova2 Frit bead, I'm less excited. There's so much muddy brown fuming around the silver glass frit pieces that the result looks fairly muddy. I did get some nice starting colour from the TerraNova2 though, so maybe this combination has some potential.

Dark Zucca separates on top of Tuxedo and has a reciprocal dark line reaction with Copper Green. Zucca and Copper Green have a mutual influence thing going on where both of those colours separate when used on top of the other.

Opal Yellow and Ivory both separate on top of Dark Zucca and additionally develop a sort of orange blotchiness that I find interesting. When Dark Zucca is used on top of Opal Yellow, the Opal Yellow develops a thick light halo around it. When it is used on top of Ivory, the Ivory clings to the edges of the stringer dots in lines in a way that sort of reminds me of a milk mustache.

Here are some other beads made with Dark Zucca:

Test Results :: Peat Moss

CiM Peat Moss (CiM452) is a rich, earthy olive green transparent colour. It is definitely unique in the 104 CoE palette, and I hope that we see more of both this and Eel Grass, my other favourite transparent from this lot of new CiM colours.

Peat Moss doesn't change much when you reduce it.

Here, I've compared Peat Moss against Effetre Olive and Effetre Light Grass Green.  As you can see, it is significantly more on the yellow side and a fair bit browner than both of those colours. I got a lot of bubbles in all of these colours, which is no doubt my own fault, but Peat Moss does seem to be a colour that likes to bubble, especially when it is used in stringer form. I think the key to avoiding these bubbles is to work slower and cooler, which I'll practice :)

On top of Peat Moss, my silver turned yellow in a thick crusty layer. When I encased a similar layer of silver with clear on top of Peat Moss, all of the silver turned white.

I think this is the test result that confused me the most.  In all of my previous tests, when I've encased silver foil with a transparent colour, it has either turned the silver golden OR left it a shiny silver under the colour layer. Peat Moss is the first colour that has effectively deadened the silver so that it has no shine at all.

On top of Peat Moss, my reducing silver glass developed very interesting colour and edges, leading me to believe that Peat Moss is a good colour to use with reducing silver glass.  My TerraNova2 frit didn't do anything remarkable - Peat Moss seems like it would be an average base colour for striking silver glass.

Here you can see that Peat Moss does interesting things when pulled into stringer with reducing silver glass frit. I was surprised to see that I got this result but that it did not turn my silver foil gold, since up until now there has been a strong correlation between those two behaviours.

Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace all separate on top of Peat Moss.  Also interesting, Copper Green didn't develop its customary greyish patina when worked with Peat Moss.

Here are a few beads made with Peat Moss:

Test Results :: Cornsilk

CiM Cornsilk (CiM314) is a soft opalescent yellow that stays a beautiful translucent colour no matter how you abuse it in the flame. I found two of my three rods of Cornsilk to be a little bit shocky, and I did get some bubbling as I was working it, but in the long spaces between those issues, this colour was pleasant to work with, smooth, and buttery.

In case you're wondering, Effetre Yellow Opalino and this colour are not really anything alike. Yellow Opalino is much less reactive with silver, much more yellow in colour and tends to opacify. I would have made a test paddle, but I don't have any Yellow Opalino currently and resisted buying some.

The only colour we had already in the 104 Palette that really bears any resemblance to Cornsilk is Effetre Yellow Alabastro, but because I am so afraid of the Alabastro colours after my unpleasant brush with Ivory Alabastro that I couldn't make myself buy any, there's no comparison between that glass and Cornsilk happening in this post.  I'm imagining that the Yellow Alabastro is just as shocky, boily, and nasty as the Ivory was and maybe that's a little unfair. If I ever run out of other colours to test, maybe I'll screw up my courage and try it.

Here you can see that Cornsilk doesn't change much after you reduce it.  The smaller, reduced bead does look a bit darker here but I'm pretty sure that it's because my background is dark and there is less Cornsilk present than in the leftmost bead.

Here is a bead that shows the colour differences between CiM Ecru, CiM Cornsilk, and CiM Ghee. Cornsilk stays opal while those two colours are cloudier and Ghee can look downright opaque depending on how it strikes.

Silver leaf fumes Cornsilk a rich caramel colour, with the silver turning brown in places and beading up into pretty little silver balls. When the silver is reduced and encased, it mostly just looks solidly greyish under the clear.  Silver Foil under a layer of Cornsilk looks much yellower than the colour of Cornsilk would seem to justify, and so I think it's safe to say that Cornsilk belongs in the same reaction category as colours like Mojito, Pale Green Apple, Straw Yellow, and Light Brown Transparent.

Cornsilk seems to make a pretty nice base colour for silver glass.  I got pretty colours in both of these beads, and with the reduction frit, the cornsilk fumed a deeper yellow in places.

I regret not doing my reduction frit stringer test with this colour, because after seeing how it works with both silver and silver glass, I have a feeling I would have been pleased with the results.

Copper green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace all separate on top of Cornsilk. Apart from that and the pretty fuming with silver, I didn't notice much in the way of reactions with this colour.

Here are some other beads made with Cornsilk: