Test Results :: Cream

Vetrofond Cream (VET822) is a pale, neutral opaque. It is a bit cooler in tone than the coveted Vetrofond Light Ivory, but it is similarly stiff and has gentler reactions with unfriendly colours than the Effetre ivories. I love this colour a lot, so I was sad to see the last time I was at Frantz Art Glass that it is all gone.

This colour's only real weak point is that is sometimes has little black speckles in it. I don't mind the speckles, and if they're in my way I just pull them out, but some other people seem not to like them. You can make up your own mind if you're lucky enough to come across some of this glass.

Cream doesn't do anything much when you reduce it.

Silver crusts up on top of Cream. When the silver is reduced and encased, it looks the same but smoother and less interesting.

Cream makes an ok (but not awesome) base for silver glass. I like it better with the reduction colours than with striking ones like TerraNova2.

Here you can see that Cream separates on top of Tuxedo and makes Tuxedo bleed when Tuxedo is used on top of it.

Cream does develop a dark line with Copper Green, but mostly only when it is used on top. The dark line reaction that it has with Opal Yellow is stronger.

I didn't make any interesting observations about its behaviour with Ivory or Peace.

Here are some beads that contain Vetrofond Cream.

Test Results :: Oracle White

Double Helix Oracle White is a white, opaque glass. It is stiffer than either Peace or Effetre White, and reacts similarly to silver as other white glasses do, but its reactions with other colours are more unique.

Because this colour is stiffer, it is well-suited to applications like stringer and sculptural work. As you'll see, Oracle White is a little more translucent, so when it is used on top of a dark colour in thin layers, a tint of the base colour shows through. Because more light passes through it, Oracle White's colour is a little brighter than that of either CiM Peace or Effetre White.

This white  also seems like it is a little more difficult to smear than other whites, making it great for flower petals in encased florals.

Oracle White does not change when you reduce it.

Here is CiM Peace, Double Helix Oracle White, and Effetre White all side-by-each on top of Oracle Black. Oracle White is a bit less opaque than either Peace or Effetre White, but not so much that it doesn't show well over a dark colour. It still covers reasonably well, so if you happen to be looking for a cooler, lighter effect, it can be a good choice for stringerwork.

If you blow the picture up really big, you can see that Oracle White and Peace both get a slight border around them on top of the Oracle Black.

Here I mixed Oracle White and Effetre White with Effetre Light Cobalt. Light Cobalt is a really saturated colour, and I thought it would be a good test to evaluate whether Oracle White is more translucent than Effetre White and CiM Peace because it is less saturated, or if there might be some other reason. In my results, the blue that resulted from the Oracle White mix is a bit darker, which helps to support my theory that this White is slightly less saturated than the CiM and Effetre ones.

Oracle White's reactions with silver are very similar to what I experienced with other Whites. If you're interested, you can look back at my test results for other whites: Effetre White, CiM Peace, Ornela Chalk White, Lauscha Kryolith White, Reichenbach White.

In the bead on the left, I've reduced silver glass frit on top of Oracle White, and you can see that it has fumed the White yellow in places. The bead on the right has TerraNova2 frit. It is probably very possible to get silver glass to strike well on top of this colour, but what I am testing when I do this particular test is to see if the base colour has any magic in it that will make getting great colour out of the silver glass easier. Wait until you see my silver and silver glass tests on Oracle Black, and you will see what I mean by 'magic'.

Tuxedo spreads on top of this colour, bleeding into it, and Oracle White separates on top of Ivory. These reactions are not like the reactions I've had with other whites.

Here are some other beads that include Oracle White:

Test Beads :: Mantis

Creation is Messy Mantis (CiM472) is a pretty, medium green translucent colour. It is the misty opal cousin of Eclectus Parrot, and like that colour, Mantis is very nice to work with. It doesn't boil and bubble crazily when you heat it, and it stays this beautiful, milky translucent colour no matter how long you work it.

Reducing Mantis doesn't change its colour.

Silver is gorgeous with Mantis, and you can see blue haze forming around it even before the silver is reduced and encased.

And following on the promise that it showed with silver, silver glass on Mantis is magical. I got really interesting surface outlining and haze with my reducing silver glass frit, and my TerraNova2 frit struck on top of it right away in a beautiful array of purples and burgundies with interesting yellow and dark outlining.

For some reason, my silver glass results are more interesting with this colour than they were with Eclectus Parrot. Maybe whatever makes this colour 'misty' also makes it love silver glass more.

Mantis is not very reactive with other colours, but Opal Yellow separates on top of it and Copper Green looks very ominously grey on top of it.

Here is a bead pair with Mantis:

Test Results :: Oracle743.opl

Double Helix Oracle743.opl is a semi-opaque white moonstone colour from Double Helix's technical glass line. It's fascinating glass. Repeated heating and cooling will turn it an opaque white, but you can reset the opacity to moonstone just by getting it super-hot again.

This colour is really nice to work with, not bubbling in the least. The rods look like they are full of bubbles before you start using them, but work up smooth and buttery.

Here, you can see that in the bead on the left, the colour has stayed semi-opaque but in the bead on the right that I reduced, the colour is much more opaque. This is not specific to the reduction flame,  just the gentle reheating it got when I wafted it through.

I thought I would compare this colour to the only two other white semi-opaques I had on hand, CiM Marshmallow and CiM Cirrus. I don't have any of the Effetre White Alabaster because I am officially terrified of the alabasters, and I've never tried the Effetre White Opalino.

It is interesting to me how many different 'kinds' of semi-opaque there are. You can see here that Oracle743.opl is a bit warmer of a white than the brightness of Marshmallow, and softer. In person, you can also see some translucency in it. The Marshmallow, on the other hand, has gone quite opaque.  Cirrus, the other colour I tested here is a wispy transparent that got a little more opacity as I worked it, but stayed mostly transparent.

I thought that Oracle743.opl was a bright white, but it is really more of an off white.

Here I've compared the Oracle743.opl to two of the other colours I'm testing right now. You can really see the beautiful opalescence of this colour in this photo.

This colour's reactions are very similar to the reactions that I get with most whites, although they are a little gentler. Silver turns a pinkish yellow colour on its surface. When the silver is reduced and encased it goes whiteish, but still shows a little pink and has a dirty yellowish crust in places.

Reducing silver glass on this colour turned it yellow, and I got a better-than-average starting strike on top of this colour with my TerraNova2 frit which makes me think it might make a nice base for striking silver glass on. More experimentation required.

This colour is beautifully unreactive.

Most of the other colours (not Tuxedo) that I used on top of it spread, just as they generally do on top of transparents.

To make this colour, I mixed Oracle743.opl and Double Helix Lotis in a 1:1 ratio. I quite like the pretty semi-opaque pink that resulted.

Here are some 'just for fun' beads using Oracle743.opl.

The next two beads use the colour I blended from Oracle743.opl and Lotis.