Test Results :: Slate

CiM Slate (CiM538) is a light, greyish blue transparent colour. Its darkness changes dramatically when it is used in thick layers, and it can bubble when applied using very thin stringer, so you need to watch your heat with this colour.

Slate does not change when you reduce it.

Nothing much happened in these first two beads, but you can see that I got some lovely blue cloudiness in the bead where I used Slate as the base colour, applied silver leaf, reduced it, and then encased it with more Slate.

Slate makes a surprisingly good base colour for silver glass. My reducing silver glass bloomed on top of it, and I got a very nice starting strike from my TerraNova2 frit.

On top of this colour, Copper Green looks very dark and dull, and it separates although you can only see that around the very edges of the dots and stringer lines.

In the bead on the right, you can see that I got some sooty lines in Slate as I melted my stringer down. I think this means that I need to clean my torch, not that this colour is especially sensitive, but you may want to test that yourself before embarking on a whole run of beads that use this colour as stringer decoration.

Here are some fun beads that include Slate.

Test Results :: Skyberry

Effetre Skyberry (EFF768) is a light blue opaque colour that blushes turquoise. It's like what you'd expect to get if Light Sky Blue and Copper Green got together and had a love child.

Like Copper Green, Skyberry develops a greyish sheen on its surface while it's being worked, although Skyberry's sheen tends more to the pinkish side, which is I guess where the whole 'berry' thing comes from. This sheen goes away when it is distracted by other surface reactions, like what you see in my colour tests with Tuxedo and Ivory.

I went to check my findings for Light Sky Blue to see how this colour and that one are similar, only to realize in a surprised and slightly horrified way that I haven't tested that colour yet.

In the bead on the left, you can see what Skyberry will do in a typical, same-coloured spacer. It's darker at the edges, and lighter in the middle, covered across the shoulders with a pale pinkish greyish sheen.

When I reduced Skyberry in the bead on the right, it turned a dark brick red.

Silver makes an interesting greyish-greenish patina on the surface of this colour, which mostly disappears when it is reduced and encased.

Like most blues, this colour is a pretty boring base colour for silver glass.  The reactions in both beads are interesting - you can see the Skyberry doing odd things around the edges of the frit in both cases - but it fails to make the colours pop, and I didn't find it a good base to strike my striking silver glass frit on.

Tuxedo separates Skyberry both when it is used on top of and underneath it, and Skyberry develops a dark line with Ivory in exactly the way you'd expect it to, as a close cousin of Copper Green.  Skyberry also separates on top of Copper Green which I thought was interesting.

In the bead on the left, if you look closely, you may notice that I accidentally used Opal Yellow twice instead of testing with Peace the way I meant to.  Oops.

Anyway, here are some fun beads with Skyberry. I still have about a half pound of this left, and plan to use it all before I move on to another palette. I am glad that Frantz still has more of this, as I'll want to put some aside for the next time I feel like working with a light blue.

Test Results :: Little Boy Blue

CiM Little Boy Blue (CiM561) us a gorgeous blue-grey opaque. It's butter-smooth, and reminds me a lot of Dirty Martini and Lapis in terms of how nice it is to work with. I'm sad to see that it is already sold out, but I hope that hearing how nice we all think it is might inspire CiM to make more of it for us.

Little Boy Blue does not change colour when you reduce it.

On top of Little Boy Blue, silver disappears. Until you reduce and encase it, and then it sits like a cloudy, silvery blanket under the clear layer. This is the exact opposite of what happens between silver and Dirty Martini, so I guess here is where those colours' similarities end.

Reducing silver glass frit is pretty on top of Little Boy Blue, and it really stands out as an excellent base of striking silver glass frit. I got beautiful colour  from my TerraNova2 here, and beautiful separation haloes around all the little fritty bits.

Little Boy Blue separates on top of Tuxedo, but it is not very reactive with other colours. Copper Green stays very grey on top of it.

Here is a pair of beads made with Little Boy Blue. I'll come back and publish some more when I have them.

Test Results :: Medium Blue

Effetre Medium Blue is a medium blue colour when used in concentration, but is very pale when used in fine layers. It's a good base colour for silver glass, and it has interesting reactions with silver but is not terribly reactive with other colours.

Medium blue does not change when you reduce it.

Silver goes yellowish on top of Medium Blue, but when you reduce it it goes all blue and cloudy.

My reducing silver glass looks a bit dull on top of Medium Blue, but it also has good delineation. I got a great starting strike from my TerraNova2 frit on top of this colour, so I'll flag this as one of the colours that's nice under striking silver glass.

Medium Blue is not a very reactive colour. I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't react with Ivory.

If you look closely at the bead where I've used Ivory and Opal Yellow on top of Medium Blue, you can see an interesting thinning of the colour around the edges of the stringerwork. I think it might be fun to use this effect in little dot beads, so I know what I'll be doing with the rest of my Medium Blue.

Here are some other beads made with Medium Blue:

Test Results :: Sacre Bleu

CiM Sacre Bleu (CiM555) is a gorgeous, vibrant, dark blue transparent. It's buttery to work, and its only real vulnerable spot is that it can be a little bit vulnerable to sooting if you work it too hot. It's interestingly reactive, it makes a nice base for silver glass, and just a beautiful colour of blue.

Here, you can see that although Sacre Bleu is essentially the same colour as Effetre Intense Blue, it's just a bit more saturated, working up darker. It's not quite as dark or as saturated as Effetre Cobalt, but its reactions are more similar to that colour.

Sacre Bleu does not change when it is reduced.

For some reason, silver leaf turned yellow and blue on top of Sacre Bleu. I looked back at previous test results, and this reaction is pretty consistent with what I saw when I tested Effetre Cobalt, so they must contain some similar ingredients.

The way silver glass develops colour on top of Sacre Bleu also bears some similarity to how it behaves with Cobalt. The reduction frit got pretty colour and interesting edges, and the TerraNova2 frit developed colours, but mostly in the burgundy/purple range.

Using Sacre Bleu over light colours reveals its true nature. It's not as saturated as Effetre Cobalt, but it is more saturated than Effetre Intense Blue.

Like Effetre Cobalt, Sacre Bleu causes separation reactions in Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace.

Here is Sacre Bleu in some fun beads.

Test Results :: Merryweather

CiM Merryweather (CiM556) is a bright, medium, translucent blue. I say translucent rather than semi-opaque because the rods I had actually retained their translucency, which I really love but is definitely not true of all of the semi-opaque colours in the CiM line.

An example of a semi-opaque colour that seems to not want to be translucent after working, Electric Avenue is on the right here. You can see that Merryweather and Electric Avenue are quite similar in colour, but Merryweather has stayed more translucent.

Tardis is like Merryweather in that it also stays translucent, but is somewhat darker.

Merryweather does not change when you reduce it.

Silver is all kinds of crazy on top of Merryweather. Nothing about its reactions remind me of Tardis, which was basically inert with silver and very gentle with other colours. Silver on top of Merryweather turned a bizarre, mottled greenish colour which it retained when I reduced and encased it.

Silver glass develops colour nicely on top of Merryweather.

Merryweather separates Copper Green, Opal Yellow, and Peace.

Ivory develops a fuzzy brown line around it when used on top of Merryweather, and when Merrweather is used on top of Ivory, you can see a brownish reaction through the translucency of its colour.

Here are some fun beads with Merryweather.

Test Results :: Intense Blue

Effetre Intense Blue is a gorgeous dark blue transparent. It has a lot of punch when it is used in thick layers, but thins out colour-wise considerably when used thinly on top of other colours. That said, it is a lot bluer on top of white than most of the other transparent 104 blues because it starts out so much darker.

Here you can see how beautifully dark and rich this blue is. It doesn't change when you reduce it.

Intense Blue and Silver don't have much of a reaction. In the bead on the left, you can see that silver leaf formed a crust on top of Intense Blue, and then you can see in the bead on the right that when that 'crust' is reduced and encased, it mellows out into a greyish blue coating.

Neither of these beads show much of interest with regard to silver glass, although Intense Blue makes a pretty, inoffensive base colour for reducing silver glass frit.

Intense Blue lightens up considerably when you use it in thin layers over other colours, but still maintains its essential blueness. You really need a blue this intense if you are going to try to use it over white to make flower petals. But if you're making blue flowers, you'll probably want to use a light blue or lavender base glass with this colour to get deeper colours.

Intense Blue is not very reactive, and apart from some separation in Copper Green when it is used over top of this colour (and even fainter separation in Opal Yellow and Ivory), there is not much to report here.

I didn't make much with this colour yet, but here's a simple little earring pair.