Test Results :: Prussian Blue

CiM Prussian Blue is the rich, deep navy blue colour that I've been waiting for without even realizing how much I wanted it.  It's darker than Lapis Cobalt, it strikes even darker, and when it strikes it can develop a greenish cast that makes it a similar colour to Lauscha Steel Blue. It's wonderful, and I love it. I have a feeling it won't last long, and who knows whether or not it will be reproduced, so I'm going to have to break my self-imposed glass buying hiatus and get a few pounds of this.

You can see the plain colour in self-coloured beads.  The bead I reduced is darker, because this colour darkens with repeated heating and cooling. It could also be because of the reducing flame, but it is hard to say for sure without using it a lot more.

Here I've compared Prussian Blue to some of the other blues out there.  Effetre Navy Blue, CiM Class M Planet (another awesome blue limited run), Effetre Lapis Cobalt, Lauscha Steel Blue, and Vetrofond Light Cobalt.  Prussian Blue is darker than Lapis Cobalt, deeper in tone, and strikes to a colour not unlike Steel Blue with repeated heating and cooling and/or the addition of silver.

Add silver to Prussian blue and you get a wonderland of lacy, silvery blueness. When the silver is reduced and encased, it turns into a lacy white blanket with a blue haze. My Prussian Blue bead where I encased the reduced silver leaf cracked, though, and I'm not 100% sure why.

Because the cracks seem to originate at the hole, it's possible that this is a thermal crack. I think I encased this bead with Zephyr, so it's also possible that there was a viscosity clash between the Zephyr and Prussian Blue, maybe created or exacerbated by the silver leaf I used. Kandice Seeber successfully encased Prussian Blue with Zephyr without any cracking, but her beads did not include silver and were likely smaller than this one. When I get more Prussian Blue, I need to explore this further.

Silver glass likes Prussian Blue, too. I got very pretty blues out of my reduction frit on top of this colour, and the striking silver glass frit got a nice starting strike. Not a miraculous base for TerraNova2 like Dark Grass Green was, but promising.

Around Tuxedo dots and lines on top of Prussian Blue, the Prussian Blue shows up in light halos. On top of Tuxedo, Prussian Blue separates.

On top of Prussian Blue, Copper Green separates. Nothing interesting happens when you put the Copper Green on top of Prussian Blue, although it is may be notable how stubbornly greyish the Copper Green becomes when used with Prussian Blue. This is definitely not one of the colours that helps Copper Green not develop that sheen.

Opal Yellow and Prussian Blue don't really have a reaction, but you can see in the left bead that Prussian Blue bled into the Opal Yellow stringerwork in places.

Ivory separates on top of Prussian Blue. This combination does not produce the reciprocal dark line reaction that I was expecting.

Prussian Blue and Peace don't noticeably react with one another.

These beads / sets were all made with Prussian Blue.

Test Results :: Light Cobalt (Vetrofond)

So just to start things off on the right foot, this is Vetrofond Light Cobalt, not Effetre. I don't know how similar Effetre Light Cobalt is, because I have not tried it.  I'm trying to test more production colours than out-of-production to make this resource more generally useful, but I had two pounds of this and I needed to know how the reactions work and what the colour looks like and since Frantz seems to still have tons of this, maybe someone else will too.

Light Cobalt is a not-very-light royal blue. It's a gorgeous colour, if you like bright, dark blue. It reminds me of the colour of some ice wine bottles, although those are generally transparent.

It was weird for me that this colour was transparent when I pulled it into stringer because it's so very saturated. So, it's dark and it's saturated, but not as dense and opaque as it seems like it will be in rod form. The stringer, when used on top of other colours, looks perfectly opaque, like that whole transparency thing was all in my head. (it wasn't)

What a vibrant colour this is. Reducing it seemed to darken the colour slightly.

Silver looks pretty silvery on top of Light Cobalt. In the bead on the left, the silver seems to have just stayed where I put it, and then when the silver is reduced and encased, it looks like a soft silvery blanket under the clear glass.

This colour is fun with reducing silver glass. It has struck darker here in the bead on the left just like it did in the spacer I reduced, and my silver glass frit looks beautiful on top of it, in lacy shades of blue and green. In the bead on the right, you can see gentle lighter blue halos popped up around my TerraNova2 frit.

Light Cobalt is not a very reactive colour, but there are a few things to talk about here.

Where I used Light Cobalt on top of Tuxedo, there is a thin crusty whiteish line around the dots and stringer lines in a not-very-uniform way. Nothing happens when it's the Tuxedo that's on top.

There's no real reaction between Copper Green and Light Cobalt except that Copper Green seems to develop that yucky greyish sheen more easily with this colour.

When Light Cobalt is used on top of Peace or Opal Yellow, you can see that there is some bleeding of the Light Cobalt into the glass around the stringer lines and dots giving a blueish glowy effect. When Peace or Opal Yellow is used on top of Light Cobalt, it develops a light blue outline, which is really neat-looking.

These beads all contain Light Cobalt.

Test Results :: Ecru

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

CiM Ecru is one of the newer CiM colours, and I am a fan. It melts beautifully, and none of my rods were in the least shocky. It fills a much-needed spot in my palette, there not being much in the way of semi-opaque neutral colours that aren't a nightmare to use in 104.

I intentionally tested this colour directly after testing Ivory Alabastro so that I would have a basis for comparison, and the results showed me that the colours are very different. The first major difference is workability. Ecru won this battle hands down, refusing to boil, shock, or splinter as I melted it. Second, the reactions I got with Ecru were quite different to what I found with Ivory Alabastro. Rather than describe the differences, I encourage you to go look at those results, which are in the post directly before this one.

The left side of this bead is Effetre Ivory Alabastro, and the right half of the bead is CiM Ecru. You can see here that Ecru is a bit warmer and a bit darker than Ivory Alabastro.

In this close-up of the smallest beads, what I see is that reducing Ecru hasn't changed it at all, and that pinkish brown webbing is evident in the surface of Ecru, although only at this magnification. I can't see it at all in these beads when I'm not wearing my magnifiers. In the right-most bead, I made a small core of Clear, added Ecru dots, and then encased the bead with Clear. What I learned here is that Ecru is so transparent in thin layers that you can barely see it. In person, it is only slightly more evident.

The addition of silver browns Ecru up considerably. You can see in the leftmost bead how it's gone a beautiful warm caramel colour. When the silver is reduced and encased, it results in a pinkish/blueish mottled appearance under the clear that has a faint MoP gleam to it.

Here in the leftmost bead, you can see that the 'caramelization' of Ecru also happens when you reduce silver glass on it.

When Copper Green is used on top of Ecru, it separates AND develops a dark line reaction around the dots and stringer lines. When Ecru is used on top of Copper Green, it separates the Copper Green slightly (the pale line around the Ecru stringer lines) but for some reason, no dark line develops.

Opal Yellow separates on top of Ecru. On top of Opal Yellow, Ecru spreads and feathers out, making its edges look all fuzzy.

Ivory separates on top of Ecru.

Sadly, due to my sad lack of photography skills, anything that might be interesting in the rightmost side of the rightmost bead has been lost to you, but you are not missing much because there's not a lot to see there. Ecru behaves with Peace much as it does with Opal Yellow, only less so, and less visibly since there's less contrast between the colours. And you can't really see Ecru very well on top of Ivory.

I made these spacers from a cane that was constructed similarly to the one I made with Ivory Alabastro, using the same other colours, and the result was that these beads came out a bit more uniform in colour and more translucent than the similar set made with the Ivory Alabastro.

Here are some fun beads with Ecru:

Test Results :: Isar Blue

Kugler Isar Blue is a really beautiful blueish teal opaque glass. This particular batch is a hair bluer and a hair darker than it was when it was marketed by Arrow Springs as ASK Aloe Vera, but that may just be a batch variation thing with the particular rods that I have purchased, because it is meant to be the same colour.

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ Reducing Silver Glass Frit, 

6 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 7 & 8 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace

I see ASK glass being sold for more than $80/lb, and I don't really understand why people would want to spend that when they can buy the new batches of the same colour numbers for less than $50/lb. I hope it is because those older batches have something really special and not that it is being sold to newer beadmakers who just don't know any better.

Anyway, I suppose I should just try to focus on the glass.

When you reduce Isar Blue, it develops a schmutzy, unbeautiful, greyish film. This is the same kind of film that develops on top of Copper Green and Dark Turquoise, except that it only happened with this colour when I reduced the glass. Normal working conditions don't seem to produce this effect.

Isar Blue is a fairly streaky colour, so if you're looking for perfect uniformity, you should find something else to melt.

Silver doesn't do anything too weird when it is left on the surface of Isar Blue, but if you reduce it and encase it after adding the silver leaf, Isar Blue undergoes a pretty weird transformation to a yellowish, alien green.

Isar Blue is a gorgeous base for silver glass. I got brilliant colour out of my TerraNova2 frit.  Unfortunately, its blueish greenness doesn't do much for reduction colours -- at least not reduction colours of the blue and green-hued variety. There just isn't enough contrast.

As I mentioned, Isar Blue is a pretty streaky colour, and you can see that pretty clearly in these test beads.

On top of Tuxedo, Isar Blue develops a concentrated dark line in the centre of dots and stringer lines.  When Tuxedo is used on top of Isar Blue, the Isar Blue rises up arouond it in little halos.

Copper Green and Isar Blue have similar reactions - on top of Copper Green, Isar Blue separates and forms a concentration line, and when it is used on top of Copper Green, little halos of Copper Green pop up around it. On top of that, the Copper Green develops a pinkish hue and goes sort of shiny.

Isar Blue bleeds into Opal Yellow when used on top of it.  When Opal Yellow is used on top of Isar Blue, no real reaction is visible.

Isar Blue and Ivory form a dark line reaction.  When the Isar Blue is used on top of Ivory, the line is subtle and sticks close to the Isar Blue. When Ivory is used on top of Isar Blue, the line is wider and lighter in colour.

I didn't notice much of a reaction between Isar Blue and Peace in either bead.

Here is a Goddess Bead and an Organic Lentil using Isar Blue. I really enjoy this colour! Even by itself in the Goddess bead, you can see all kinds of fun streakiness and curdling.

Test Results :: Neptune

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 6 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 7 - w/ Tuxedo, 8 - w/ Copper Green, 9 - w/ Opal Yellow, 10 - w/ Ivory, 11 - w/ Peace

So... this Neptune stuff.  It's a newish handpulled colour from Effetre, also going by the Italian name of Verde Rame Metallico - or Copper Green Metallic, for those of us who do not speak Italian.

Neptune seems to be a name that Frantz Art Glass has created themselves, and while I am not a huge fan of different vendors naming the same colour of glass different things, I think Neptune is a damned good name for this colour and if I owned Effetre I might wish I'd thought of it myself.

Neptune is definitely a colour that some of us will love and some of us will not, however I am firmly in the love camp on this one.  I can't resist the glasses that have 'interesting' finishes, and the odd, shiny-yet-matte finish of this glass kills me.  It is also full of weirdness which I am attracted to in the same way that ants are attracted to picnics.

Neptune, after you encase it, is not metallic at all.  It is a beautiful dark teal colour, somewhat reminiscent of CiM Mermaid without the streakiness.  Neptune is a lot freakier than Mermaid though, and seems so super-saturated that I half-expect the rods to leave a greenish stain on anything they touch.

Sadly, Neptune is not so interesting with silver... but then, none of the coppery green colours seem to care about silver much.  You can see, however, that in the bead on the left the finish of the Neptune is a little more red than it is in the other beads below, with some fine yellow/green webbing on the surface, and that in the bead where I reduced and encased the silver leaf, it's turned a queer shade of yellow.

Neptune is a good base for silver glass, the colour having developed quite weill in my TerraNova2 frit, but being so shiny itself it doesn't much need any shiny reducing silver glass decoration.  The bead on the right just looks a little messy.

Copper Green and Tuxedo don't really react with one another, which is useful information because this is a pretty reactive colour.  I think they are attractive together, since the Neptune really shines when paired with something to provide some negative space.  It's also interesting, because Tuxedo has tended to bleed with a lot of the other greens I've used it with.

This bead that features Neptune with Copper Green is just sort of ugly.  The Copper Green is mostly subsumed by the Neptune, with just a few splotches standing out.

I got the Neptune pretty hot in this bead and was "rewarded" with some random pitting in the Neptune portion of the bead.  Neptune bleeds into Opal Yellow in the centre of this bead and at other random points through the Opal Yellow stringer design.

Love this.  On top of Ivory, Neptune is very self-contained, very shiny and has a very pronounced darkness at the edges of it.  Ivory on top of Neptune is not quite so nice, the Ivory slightly separating and getting sort of 'eaten' by the Neptune, with big brown bites taken out of the stringer lines and dots as the Neptune webs its way around.  In the centre of this bead, the Neptune has consumed part of the real estate originally reserved for Ivory with a very pronounced dark brown webbing.  This bead makes me really happy.

With Peace, Neptune is more intermittently shiny, and you can see that it has bled into the Peace in the centre of the bead.  The Peace dots and stringer lines on top of Neptune seem thinned out and cloudy around the edges.

So, to summarize.  This colour rocks.  The test beads are one thing, but making real beads with this colour is hugely fun.  A small drawback is that, like many handpulled colours, Neptune can be a little shocky.  I can live with it.

Fun beads with Neptune:

 

 =

 

 

Test Results :: Mermaid Unique #1

This is trippy, this blogging thing, because you can look back at what you did a year ago (or more, I suppose, if you've blogged for more than a year) and see what your beads were like, what you were focusing on, and in the case of this blog post, the results from some other testing you did that you now want to reference.  Fun!

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 6 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 7 - w/ Tuxedo, 8 - w/ Copper Green, 9 - w/ Opal Yellow, 10 - w/ Ivory, 11 - w/ White

In this case, I was looking back to my test results with CiM Mermaid to see the differences between Mermaid and this newer colour, CiM Mermaid Unique #1.  I posted my Mermaid results in December 2009, so the format of the post is much different from this one, and my beads have improved quite a bit since then, so that is also evident when you look at the two sets of results.  I should go back at some point and re-do my Mermaid testing, but I have a lot of other colours to get through first.

Mermaid Unique #1 is both darker and bluer than original Mermaid.  It is also less streaky, and does not go red when you reduce it the way original Mermaid does.  Silver glass is GORGEOUS on Mermaid Unique #1.  This is another one of the CiM unique lots that sold out so quickly that it made my head spin, so there isn't any more left.  I only ever had a few rods of it -- just enough to tease me and get me all wound up about it.

Silver on Mermaid Unique #1 turns sort of greenish.  In the bead on the left, the silver seems to have migrated towards the centre of the bead and webbed out a little.  In the bead on the right, the colour of the reduced and encased silver leaf seems mottled with a greenish colour, pink and a yellowish orange competing for space.  When I used silver with Mermaid, the silver seemed to discolour the Mermaid and yellow it a bit, but I didn't see this effect with Mermaid Unique #1.

I got gorgeous colour out of my TerraNova2 frit on top of Mermaid Unique #1, and the reduced silver glass got interesting colour too, although I like the TN2 bead much better.

Tuxedo on top of Mermaid Unique #1 bleeds a little, and looks all smeary.  On top of Tuxedo, Mermaid Unique #1 developed a shiny, silvery outline.  A lot of colours seem to do this on top of Tuxedo, I'm noticing. This reaction did not happen between Effetre Black and Mermaid.

Something in the Mermaid Unique #1 makes Copper Green sheen up with a pinkish grey patina.  This isn't unattractive, but the colour doesn't really work well with the Mermaid Unique #1.  This didn't seem to happen between Mermaid and Copper Green, although my Copper Green batch might be slightly different now than it was then.

On top of Opal Yellow, Mermaid Unique #1 gets a faintly darker line and dot in the middle of the stringer lines and dots.  Mermaid Unique #1 bleeds into Opal Yellow, so you can see a petroleum green-coloured stain seeping into the Opal Yellow from the Mermaid Unique #1 side of the bead.

I think I'm using a different batch of Effetre Ivory now than when I tested Mermaid, and that might account for the CRAZY marbling that was caused in the middle of this bead.  It also might be that Mermaid Unique #1 is more reactive with Ivory than regular Mermaid is.  Either way, this reaction is way cool, and I like the dark line reaction between the Ivory and Mermaid Unique #1 too.  The dark line reaction is more pronounced in this bead than in the test bead I made with Ivory and Mermaid.

Like with Opal Yellow, Mermaid Unique #1 bleeds into White and gets a concentration line/dot in the centre of the stringer lines and dots placed over top of it.

Here are some fun beads with Mermaid Unique #1.  So sad there won't be any more.