Test Results :: Spring Willow

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 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

Effetre Spring Willow is a bright, cheerful light yellow-green colour. Its working properties are very similar to those of Effetre Okey Dokey Artichoky, a colour that is no longer available but that I love just as much. Where Okey Dokey Artichoky was more of a blueish green, Spring Willow is more on the Chartreuse side.

Like Okey Dokey Artichoky, Spring Willow is transparent when it's hot. However, after it cools down, it is decidedly opaque. It is a little streaky, and can also strike to a sort of brownish/yellow colour in a patchy way.

When Spring Willow is reduced, it develops a patchy, brownish surface colouration.

Spring Willow fumes a little yellowish/brownish when silver leaf is applied to its surface. The silver leaf also goes a little brown, and lays flat on the surfgace without balling up and disappearing the way it does on some other colours.

When the silver leaf is reduced and encased, it does two strange things. First of all, the colour of the silver lightens right up to a blueish silver. Secondly, the Spring Willow turns pink. I have no explanation for this at all, but isn't it cool?

Putting silver glass on Spring Willow isn't a great way to use up those colours you paid $80+ per pound for. The reduction colours get sort of blotchy and weird-looking (and kind've clash with the colour of Spring Willow) and I didn't have a lot of success getting my TerraNova2 frit to strike.

Note: Apparently some people like what happens when you reduce silver glass on Spring Willow and the associated fuming reactions, so you might want to try it yourself to see. I'm not one of those people, but you might be!

mmmm... reactions.

On top of Tuxedo, Spring Willow looks very translucent, and looks more blueish grey than green. This isn't a reaction per se, but it is interesting.

Copper Green, Opal Yellow and Peace all separate on top of Spring Willow.

When Spring Willow is used on top of Copper Green, the Copper Green takes on an intense turquoise appearance, and doesn't get that odd greyish hazing on its surface.

Opal Yellow makes Spring Willow turn an orangey-yellow colour. When the Spring Willow is on top of Opal Yellow, the Opal Yellow pops up around it in cheerful yellow halos.

When you put Ivory on top of Spring Willow, it develops a dark line reaction that is fairly dramatic - it develops in a shaded ring sort of configuration, meaning that you get three colours instead of just the typical two. You can see in the left-most bead above that the dots and stringer lines have a clean Ivory area in the centre, surrounded by a darker brownish aura, finally all surrounded by a dark brown line. Neat!

When you put Spring Willow on top of Ivory it stops looking light green and looks more like a turquoise. The colour it turns is a mottled greyish green-blue, and it develops a jaggedy dark line reaction with the Ivory underneath.

Again, I don't have anything fun to share made out of Spring Willow because of my annoying kiln problems. Hopefully I will have some new beads to share soon.

Test Results :: Sedona

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 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

Effetre Sedona is a temperamental, dusky pink that has occasional tendencies towards lavender. It is a blotchy, organic, beautiful colour.

Sedona has a tendency to devitrify. Like Effetre Purple (Evil Devitrifying Purple, or EDP), the secret to staying free of the devit is to get the bead glowing hot and then not heat it again. It's the incremental heating and cooling that are a real problem for these colours. I learned from Kimberly Affleck that you can also kill the devit on Sedona by lightly reducing the bead in a dragon's breath flame, which is a strong, no-oxygen flame, but I'm a wuss and I don't like turning my torch that high, so I rarely bother. I sort of like the devit, so I'm figuring out ways to make it work for me.

Try making a bead with Sedona and letting it get a really disgusting amount of devitrification. To maximize the amount of devitrification, gently re-heat and cool the Sedona bead at least five times. Then, when you think you've probably made the absolute ugliest thing ever, encase it completely with Light Aqua, melt in the encasement layer and then stick it in the kiln. Let me know what you think.

Sedona in its natural state ranges anywhere from a deep dusty rose, to a hot pink, to a pinkish lavender. You never quite know what you're going to get with Sedona. When you reduce Sedona, it turns a shiny dark purple.

Where I have added silver leaf to the Sedona, it has developed oily-looking black webbing, and has also blushed a strange orangey pink colour. Around the edges, it has yellowed. When the silver leaf is reduced and encased, a lot more yellow is evident, as well as a livid lavender colour.

Adding reducing silver glass frit to Sedona and then reducing it is not a very attractive path to go down. The silver glass frit turns a dead mustardy colour, and all around it the Sedona reduces to a dark purple. Ugh. On the other hand, Sedona is brilliant as a base for striking silver glass, if you don't mind how the Sedona gets a little orange around the frit. My TerraNova2 frit here has bloomed beautifully.

Sedona is one of the more reactive colours I've tested, and the reactions are almost identical to those I got with EDP. Copper Green, Opal Yellow and Peace all separate on top of Sedona. When Sedona is used on top of Copper Green, Opal Yellow and Peace, the base colour rises up around the Sedona in halos.

There is a reciprocal orangey reaction between Opal Yellow and Sedona - Opal Yellow on top of Sedona looks a richer, deeper yellow than usual, with a tint of Orange. Sedona on top of Opal Yellow seems to spread a little and take on an orangey hue. This reminds me of the reaction between Opal Yellow and Rubino Oro.

Ivory blackens when used with Sedona, developing a webby dark line reaction. When the Ivory is used on top of Sedona, The reaction is densely contained within the Ivory stringer dots and lines, but when Sedona is used on top of Ivory, the reaction is much less localized, and spreads like wildfire.

On top of both Tuxedo and Ivory, Sedona looks far more purple than it does pink.

Here are some fun beads with Sedona.

  

Test Results :: Moana

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 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

CiM Moana is a new Limited Run colour from Creation is Messy. It's a dark, blueish-teal semi-opaque. The colour of it is very similar to the colour of CiM Mermaid, but it is an opal like Rainforest and Atlantis. It is somewhat greener than CiM Atlantis, and far bluer than Rainforest. I think that this colour has very limited quantities, so if it looks like something you want, you'd better get some as soon as the shipment lands at Frantz Art Glass. This colour melted like a dream, and its reactions with other colours are very similar to the reactions that I got with both Atlantis and Rainforest.

Silver leaf turns a yellowish colour on top of Moana, and sort of disperses in little beads in a lacelike pattern. When the silver is reduced and encased, it turns yellow.

On top of Moana, my reducing silver glass got some interesting halo effects, however the blue on blue thing doesn't really do it for me. Not enough contrast. My TerraNova2 frit got some nice strike though.

Here we see how reactive Moana is.  Copper Green, Opal Yellow and Peace all separate on top of Moana, and putting Moana on top of those colours makes them rise up in halos around the Moana dots and stringer lines.  Moana separates into light and dark on top of Tuxedo, too.

Ivory is the neatest reaction of the bunch - it separates and curdles when used on top of Moana as well as developing a dark line reaction.  When Moana is used on top of Ivory, a dark brown line reaction pops up, in addition to a lot of muddy brown webbing and the Ivory rising up in halos around it.

Here's a fun bead with Moana:

Test Results :: Jade Palace

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 & 8 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, Peace

CiM Jade Palace is a medium, teal semi-opaque. It seems a little like it might be a lighter version of CiM Rainforest, however the reactions I got with Jade Palace aren't really all that similar to the reactions I got with Rainforest, so it is materially a different colour as far as I am concerned.

When silver leaf is used on top of Jade Palace, it disperses into a fine silvery mist. Underneath the silver leaf, the Jade Palace has struck to a darker version of itself, but I can't be certain whether this happened because of the silver or if it struck because of some repeated heating and cooling. I'm not sure how many times I pressed this bead, which doesn't really help any of us know for sure.

When I encased reduced silver leaf on top of Jade Palace, it turned decidedly gold. I believe I was using Reichenbach Crystal Clear for this test. You can probably see that the bead split in half along the mandrel line as well, which could be my fault, but also might be due to the differing viscosity between the Reichenbach clear and the Jade Palace because Reichenbach Crystal Clear is a very stiff colour, whereas Jade Palace is very soft and runny. I had a similar problem encasing Mulberry with Effetre 006 clear for possibly the same reason. The jury is still out.

It looks like Jade Palace is a little nicer as a base for striking silver glass than it is for reducing silver glass. I got a great start to my strike in the TerraNova2 frit bead, but not a lot of magic happened there. In the bead with the reduced silver glass frit, the frit and reduction seems to have fumed the Jade Palace to a yellower, greener version of itself but the appearance of the frit is sort of smeary and lackluster.

Jade Palace does not do much in the way of reaction with Tuxedo, but it does some crazy things with the other colours I tested it with.

Copper Green

On top of Jade Palace, Copper Green separates into a reddish, shiny colour and a darker teal colour. A faint lighter line is visible around the edges of the Copper Green stringer and dots. I observed something silimar with Seafoam, however with Seafoam the lighter line was much more regular and pronounced than it is here with Jade Palace.

When Jade Palace is used on top of Copper Green, the greenish colour of the Jade Palace gathers in the centre of the dots and stringer lines, surrounded by a light turquoise line, all surrounded by a deeper, dark turquoise. This is a pretty neat reaction, however in the centre of the dots and stringer lines I also got some random sooting/blackening which sort of mars the overall effect.

Opal Yellow

Opal Yellow separates on top of Jade Palace and underneath it. The light yellow halos that pop up around Jade Palace stringerwork are very interesting and worth some playtime if you happen to have some of this colour. I like how the Jade Palace seems to forget that it is semi-opaque and looks very transparent over Opal Yellow.

Ivory

On top of Jade Palace, Ivory separates, gets a dark line reaction and curdles... ALL AT THE SAME TIME. The Jade Palace underneath stays more or less like itself, not getting all curdled the way Seafoam did. This is very similar to how Ivory reacted with Rainforest, although this reaction is quite a bit more dramatic than that one was.

On top of Ivory, Jade Palace turns into a darker, browner version of itself and spreads quite a lot, brown webbing spreading all over the Ivory. Underneath the Jade Palace, the Ivory curdles.

Peace

Peace separates on top of Jade Palace. When Jade Palace is used on top of Peace, the Peace separates underneath it, white halos popping up around the Jade Palace. The Jade Palace goes very transparent and a very dark line forms in the middle of the Jade Palace stringerwork.

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:

 

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Test Results :: Rainforest

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 & 8 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory and Peace

CiM Rainforest, depending on how you use it, ranges from a medium teal semi-opaque to a dark green opaque with blue overtones and some really interesting behaviour.

I was talking to someone a few weeks ago about this new colour, and the words they said to me about it were, "I'm not going to order any Rainforest - it looks just like Mermaid, and I already have a lot of Mermaid."

Well, I guess this colour and Mermaid can look approximately the same hue of teal, depending  on how much the Rainforest has been struck, but that's really where the similarity ends.  Where Mermaid is stiff, pasty and streaky (and beautiful in its own way), Rainforest is soft and buttery, and because it is a semi-opaque, has a sort of inner glow to it. Rainforest also has much more interesting reactions with other colours than Mermaid does.

Reducing Rainforest results in a darker colour, and over-reducing it results in an unattractive dark blotchiness.

On top of Rainforest, silver leaf melted into the surface sort of disperses into tiny little droplets and more or less disappears from view.  When this non-reaction is reduced and encased, it looks like a dirty force field cloaking the Rainforest under the clear glass.

I didn't get great colour out of my TerraNova2 frit on top of Rainforest, but my reduced silver glass frit looks freaky, webby and yummy on top of it.

 

Tuxedo:  There is no obvious reaction between Tuxedo and Rainforest. On top of Rainforest, Tuxedo dots and lines stay nice and crisp. On top of Tuxedo, Rainforest is barely visible due to its semi-opacity.

Copper Green:  On top of Rainforest, Copper Green separates, with a darker turquoise line/dots coalescing in the centre of the stringer lines/dots. Underneath Copper Green, Rainforest webs a little, developing fine darker lines. When Rainforest is used on top of Copper Green, the Copper Green separates into light and dark turquoise again, with the lighter colour next to the Rainforest. Some odd, mottled, brownish 'smut' has also shown up on the light turquoise part of the separated Copper Green in this bead.

Opal Yellow: On top of Rainforest, Opal Yellow separates so that a fine, translucent line/dot is visible in the centre of the stringer lines/dots. The real weirdness happens when you put Rainforest on top of Opal Yellow. The Opal Yellow curdles, light yellow halos springing up around the Rainforest, and the Rainforest thins out and webs on top of it.

Ivory: Rainforest turns Ivory brown, but in a different, webby sort of way from a lot of other greens/turquoises. On top of Rainforest, the Ivory separates so that it has a fine translucent line/dot in the middle of dots/lines and the edges darken. The appearance of the Ivory over Rainforest is mottled and aged. On top of Ivory, Rainforest looks greener and browner, and it causes a frizzy brown webbing through the Ivory base glass.

Peace: The reaction between Peace and Rainforest is very subtle.  Peace separates on top of Rainforest, and when Rainforest is used on top of it, it curdles gently. This is similar to what happens between Rainforest and Opal Yellow, only much less dramatic.

In both of these beads the Rainforest has struck to a very deep green.  These are not very attractive beads, but that is not Rainforest's fault.

 

Test Results :: Atlantis

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 & 8 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Peace, Opal Yellow, Ivory

The new CiM Atlantis is a medium turquoise semi-opaque, similar to Effetre Medium Turquoise Alabastro, but a little more vibrant, a little more reactive, maybe a little darker and much less irritating to work with. Atlantis seems to darken in colour with repeated striking.

Atlantis and silver have an interesting relationship. On top of Atlantis, silver leaf webs and bubbles and turns a golden colour. When this combination is reduced and encased, the yellowing is more pronounced, and the webbing effect is magnified. The area between the Atlantis and the silver, under the clear, looks green.

I'm not really sure about Atlantis and silver glass because I didn't make many beads with it, but I sort of like the way my reduction frit bloomed and grew on top of Atlantis. I didn't get much colour out of my TerraNova2 frit in the bead on the left, but in one of the fun beads at the end of this post you can see I had a little more success.

And I know, this looks like cheating. From left to right on both beads we have Tuxedo, Copper Green, Peace, Opal Yellow and Ivory.

Tuxedo: On top of Tuxedo, Atlantis separates and forms a dark line in the centre of stringer lines and a dark dot in the centre of dots. On top of Atlantis, Tuxedo doesn't do much.

Copper Green: On top of Copper Green, Atlantis sort of dissipates and causes odd turquoise halos in the Copper Green underneath. What you can see of the remaining copper green looks dark and blotchy. On top of Atlantis, Copper Green separates so that it has a dark line/dot in the middle of the stringerwork, and underneath that stringerwork, a fine dark webbing has appeared in the Atlantis.

Peace: There is no noticeable reaction between Peace and Atlantis when Atlantis is used on top of Peace except for a subtle curdling effect in the Peace that is not unlike how the Opal Yellow behaves with Atlantis but is much less pronounced. Atlantis spreads a little on top of Peace, too. Peace on top of Atlantis separates so that the dots/lines have a dark centre.

Opal Yellow: Atlantis and Opal Yellow are crazy together in the same way I remember Ming and Opal Yellow being crazy together.  Under the Opal Yellow, the Atlantis has crazed with tiny fine, dark lines.  As a result, the Opal Yellow stringer lines and dots also have this odd crazing, and the Opal Yellow separates so that the dots/lines have a dark centre. Under Atlantis, Opal Yellow develops a pronounced curdling effect, with transparent 'cracks' springing up in the Opal Yellow all around the Atlantis dots and stringer lines.  Atlantis also sort of spreads and disintegrates on top of Opal Yellow.

Ivory: Ack! This is an interesting reaction for sure. When Atlantis is used on top of Ivory, a fine crazing of brown, bubbly-looking webbing springs out from it and the Atlantis looks darker and tealer than with the other colours. When Ivory is used on top of Atlantis, it looks brown with black webbing, and the Atlantis is crazed underneath.

Here are some fun beads with Atlantis.

 

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.