Test Results :: Sunset

CiM Sunset (CiM210) is a dark orange opaque, almost-but-not-quite as dark as CiM Phoenix and in a similar hue range.

Sunset is a striking colour and will get darker with repeated heating and cooling, but a simple waft through a reduction flame didn't change its colour.

Silver crusts up and gets yellowish on top of Sunset. When the silver is reduced and encased it turns blue in places.

Silver Glass reacts with Sunset in a dark-line way. I got a beautiful starting strike on my TerraNova2 frit on top of this colour.

While Sunset is only a moderately reactive colour, there are some interesting things going on in these test beads.

While nothing of note happens when Tuxedo is used over Sunset, Sunset separates on top of Tuxedo.

Copper Green separates and develops a subtle dark line around it when it is used on top of Sunset. When the Sunset is on top, the exact opposite is true and it is the Sunset that separates and the dark line is subtle but wide.

Opal Yellow and Ivory both separate on top of Sunset. When the Sunset is on top, it is the separator. In both cases, the sunset edges get 'eaten' by the base colour. The reaction in both cases is more pronounced with Ivory than it is with Opal Yellow.

These beads all contain some Sunset.

Test Results :: Alley Cat

CiM Alley Cat (CiM209) is a medium orange colour that is darker than Creamsicle but lighter and more yellow than Phoenix. It can be brought closer to Sunset/Phoenix orange with repeated heating and cooling because it is a striker.

The colour of Alley Cat is not affected by reducing it.

Silver behaves with Alley Cat the way it does with other sulfur-containing colours in the orange, yellow, and ivory family. It turns the surface of Alley Cat brown and develops interesting brown/yellow striations through it. This colour would probably make interesting silvered ivory stringer. When the silver is reduced and encased, it turns blue.

Alley Cat is an interesting base colour for silver glass. My reducing silver glass frit bloomed over it, and my TerraNova2 frit struck readily and developed all kinds of interesting outlining.

Alley Cat is a bit reactive. It separated underneath my Tuxedo, and when used on top of Tuxedo it got an interesting semi-opaque quality to its outer edges.

Copper Green and Alley Cat have a mutual dark line reaction, similar to but less violent than what happens between Copper Green and Ivory.

Ivory and Opal Yellow both spread on top of this colour pretty wildly, which I think is because it is stiffer than they are. I was surprised to find no outlining reaction between Alley Cat and Opal Yellow because of how Opal Yellow reacts with Ivory, but I like surprises. Without the occasional surprise, it would be hard to stay motivated to do this testing.

Here are some other beads made with Alley Cat.

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 :: Green Cave

Effetre Green Cave (EFF856) is a gorgeous, medium-dark green glass that some people seem to have been able to make turn blue with selective reheating. I haven't experimented much with that, but it's clear that nothing I did while making these test beads evoked blueness from it.

Reducing Green Cave seemed to make it a little darker. It's not very clear if this was because of the reduction flame or if this is a striking colour - I'd need to experiment with it a bit more before I could be sure.

Here are, side by side, the two different tonalities I have of Green Cave. I prefer the one on the left, but honestly I love both of them. It's so rare to have a dark green that doesn't do nasty things to Ivory, and I am going to enjoy every last crumb of it.

Green Cave reacts like Ivory when silver is added to it, which makes me wonder what silvered Green Cave stringer would be like. In the bead on the left you can see how the silver crusted up and looks misty and blue in places. When the silver is reduced and encased, it's less attractive, showing patches of brownish green and losing any lustre it had before the reduction/encasement.

Like Ivory, Green Cave makes a really interesting base colour for silver glass. My reduction frit got all kinds of interesting borders and fading, and I got dark outlines around my TerraNova2 frit and lots of initial, interesting colour. Like Ivory, Green Cave is very soft glass and the TerraNova2 frit migrated towards the centre of the bead as I was heating and shaping it.

Tuxedo makes Green Cave separate into lighter and darker versions of itself, both  when used on top of and underneath it.

Copper Green separates on top of Green Cave and develops a dark outline. When the Green Cave is on top of Copper Green, it also separates and gets a dark outline.

Opal Yellow gets a dark border with Green Cave, but only when the Opal Yellow is on top.

Ivory spreads out on top of Green Cave and the Green Cave separates underneath it.On top of Ivory, Green Cave separates but doesn't spread at all. If anything, the Green Cave lines look narrower on top of Ivory than on top of the other colours I tested it with.

Here are some other beads that include Green Cave.

Test Results :: Pistachio

Effetre Pistachio (EFF415) is a gorgeous yellow-green-grey ochre colour, both greener and lighter than most batches of Vetrofond  Yellow Ochre. It's similar to Effetre Apple Blush, but is lighter and more subdued in hue. It's a streaky colour, so sometimes when you use it you get lines in your work where it joins onto itself, but that's its only real flaw.

As you melt Pistachio, it goes a bit lighter than its rod colour, but as you use it the colour all comes back. You can see in the left bead here that it is a bit lighter - it's only because I hadn't struck all of the colour back into it. Pistachio doesn't change colour when you reduce it.

Here you can see that Pistachio reacts with silver in a similar manner to Ivory. Silver discolours and covers its surface when you use it on top, and when you reduce and encase the silver it gets pinkish and blueish tones in it.

Pistachio is an interesting base colour for reducing silver glass because of the neat colour contrast, and I got some nice colour in my TerraNova2 frit, but overall these test beads weren't very remarkable.

Pistachio and Copper Green form a mutual dark line reaction that is more pronounced and invasive when the Pistachio is on top.  It does this with Opal Yellow, too, in a similar way to what you see when you use Opal Yellow and Ivory together.

Ivory separates on top of Pistachio and Pistachio separates on top of Ivory.

Here are some other beads that include Pistachio:

Test Results :: Oobleck

CiM Oobleck (CiM465) is a that's-not-a-colour-we-see-a-lot-here-on-earth sort of colour. It's wickedly vibrant, beautiful to work, and I was intrigued by its reactions with other colours. Most of the opaques I tried with it spread on top of it, and I love it with silver.

Here you can see that Oobleck doesn't change when you reduce it.

It does change, though, quite a lot, when you put silver on it. Silver turns Oobleck an ochre colour. You can see some of that in action in the beads at the end of this post. On top of Oobleck, silver looks beigeish and beads up a little. When the silver on top of Oobleck is reduced and encased, it takes on a blueish cast.

My silver glass travelled to the middle of the Oobleck beads for some reason. And once it got there, in both cases, behaved very interestingly. i got cool outlines around all of my reduction frit pieces, and it developed colour in a beautifully variegated way. My TerraNova2 frit got very interesting, thick outlines and also developed colour really nicely. So, good base for silver glass is Oobleck.

Something worth noting is that I got all this gorgeous colour from the silver glass frit but although Oobleck is clearly quite reactive with silver, it didn't take on a lot of fume when I reduced the silver glass frit on top of it. Interesting.

Oobleck reacts like it thinks it's Ivory, in a category with other colours like Coral, Vetrofond Yellow Ochre, Effetre Grasshopper, and most yellows, oranges, ivories, and some reds. It develops a dark line with Copper Green, and brownish line with Opal Yellow, and seems to be heavier than the other colours I used it with here because they spread on it like crazy.

On top of Ivory, Tuxedo, and Peace, Oobleck separated into darker and lighter versions of itself.

These beads all contain some Oobleck.