Test Results :: Antique Ivory

Effetre Antique Ivory (EFF481) is a dark ivory-coloured glass that has a similar reaction profile to Light Ivory and Dark Ivory but it is just a little more muted in hue. Like the ivories, this reacts interestingly with silver and makes good Silvered Ivory Stringer.

Here, you can see that Antique Ivory doesn't change colour when you reduce it.

Silver darkens Antique Ivory and crusts up on its surface. When the reaction is reduced and encased, the darkening of the Antique Ivory goes away.

Like Light and Dark Ivory, this colour makes a good base colour for silver glass. The colour develops well on top of it, and it has interesting blackening/crinkling at the edges of the fritty bits, too.

Apologies for the dirt you can see on the Tuxedo end of the leftmost bead. It's been hard to find time to do anything bead-related over the last few months and I don't have the energy to retake that photo.

You can see in the rightmost bead here the Antique Ivory curdling underneath the other colours I used it with. Like Light and Dark Ivory, this colour gets a dark line around it when used with Copper Green, although the line is more subtle with this colour when the Antique Ivory is on top.  Ivory spreads out on top of this colour.

The edges of Tuxedo dots and stringer lines get all blurry on top of this colour but, interestingly, Antique Ivory on top of Tuxedo seems not to be a reactive pairing. 

Like Light and Dark Ivory, this colour forms a subtle brown line reaction with Opal Yellow.

Here are some fun little pairs that include Antique Ivory.

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 :: Dark Topaz

Effetre Dark Topaz (016) is a rich, dark transparent colour that is reminiscent of Root Beer or Coca Cola. In terms of reactions, Dark Topaz is most similar to Ivory and other colours like Ivory. It has strong reactions to silver and copper, and is pretty easy-going with everything else.

Dark Topaz doesn't change colour when you reduce it.

Dark Topaz makes an interesting base for silver leaf. Silver behaves on it much the same way that it behaves on Ivory. There's no point in encasing silver foil with Dark Topaz - it kills it.

Dark Topaz is a beautiful base colour for both reducing and striking silver glass. It's got something in it that serves as a catalyst.

Like Ivory, Dark Topaz forms a brown line reaction with Opal Yellow.

Dark Topaz turns a greyish brown on top of Copper Green

Ivory and Peace both separate on top of Dark Topaz.

You can encase goldstone with Dark Topaz, but if you do, don't get it really hot for prolonged periods of time. If you do, it turns a blechy dark grey colour because the copper in the goldstone reacts with the metals in the Dark Topaz. If you want to encase your goldstone with a dark brown transparent to accentuate its beauty, Oliva Nera (Black Olive) is a better choice because it won't discolour.

Here are some beads that contain Dark Topaz.

Test Results :: Amphibian

The stock paddle photo of CiM Amphibian (CiM 423) is a very interesting two-toned green colour, so when I started using this I thought the beads would come out that way. They don't, but the uniform grey-green colour that Amphibian does yield is beautiful.

I really enjoyed using this colour. It is a pretty green that has an interesting reaction profile. It doesn't react negatively with Ivory and other sulfur-containing colours and it fumes brown with silver. This is not unlike what I have observed with Effetre Grasshopper, but Amphibian is a bit bluer, and quite a bit greyer than Grasshopper.

Amphibian doesn't change when you reduce it.

Silver crusts up on top of Amphibian and turns it a yellowish brown colour. When the silver is reduced and encased, it evens out on the surface of the bead and looks uniformly silvery.

On top of Amphibian, silver glass frit blooms. In both of these beads, I got excellent colour in the silver glass. In the leftmost bead where I reduced the frit, you can see a golden aura around the fritty bit edges.

Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace all separate on top of Amphibian. Amphibian separates on top of Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, and Ivory (but, oddly, not Peace.)

On top of Amphibian, Opal Yellow also develops a strange dark yellow line around it. I'm not really sure what to make of this reaction because I've never seen it before, but I quite like it.

These beads all contain a little Amphibian.

Test Results :: Bone

CiM Bone (CiM826) is a lovely, pale neutral colour. It's reactive, but much less volatile than other Ivories that we currently have available. Bone is paler and cooler than Effetre Ivory, and I think you'll like its reaction profile.

Do you miss Vetrofond Ivory and Yellow Ice? Bone isn't the same, but it is Ivory in colour, is not reactive in a muddy, negative way, and is beautiful with silver, which are the three things I miss most about those colours.

Reducing Bone seems to warm its colour to a light tan.

Here is CiM Bone with Vetrofond Biscotti, Vetrofond Cream, Reichenbach Porcelain, Effetre Wood, and Effetre Ivory. As you can see, it's very similar in colour to Vetrofond Cream. I haven't done a lot with Cream yet, so I am not certain how similar it and Bone are in other respects.

Silver Leaf on Bone behaves pretty much the way you'd expect if you know what it does with Effetre Ivory. The base colour fumes a deep brown and the silver gets a goldish cast to it. When the silver is reduced and encased, it turns blue in patches.

 

Since Effetre ivories are fun with silver, I thought I'd try silvered stringer with Bone.  Here's what silvered Bone is like - not as veiny as Effetre Ivory but a very interesting, mottled organic effect.

Reducing silver glass on Bone fumes the surface a richer Ivory colour and brownish around the edges of the frit. Striking silver glass on top of Bone was a slow starter. I looked back at my tests for Vetrofond Ivory and Effetre Light Ivory and it seems like this colour's less dramatic reactions mean that it will be less exciting with silver glass, but I would love it if someone would prove me wrong.

Like other Ivories, Bone develops a reciprocal dark line reaction with Opal Yellow. Unlike other Ivories, Bone does not react negatively with Copper Green, forming no dark line reaction at all. I have no idea why, but I can be grateful for this without understanding it.

Bone separates on top of Copper Green and Tuxedo.When Tuxedo is used on top of it, the Bone rises up in halos around the Tuxedo stringer lines and dots. When Copper Green is used on top of it, the Copper Green separates but the colour of it remains so dark and gunmetalish that it's not all that easy to see the reaction.

Has anyone else noticed that Tuxedo has gotten bluer and more transparent in recent years? I don't know what the current batch is like, but this stuff from last year seems much less opaque than I am used to.

Here are some other beads that include Bone.