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 :: Pale Purple (Pale Amethyst)

Effetre Pale Purple (EFF046), also called Pale Amethyst, is a very pale purple transparent colour. It is not very reactive with silver or other colours, and is reasonably well-behaved in the flame, resisting my "expert" attempts at boiling it.

Overall, I quite like this colour. I don't use a lot of pale transparents in the beads I typically make, but I like having one in each hue group that I can call on reliably when I need one.

Pale Amethyst doesn't change colour when you reduce it.

Here you can see that silver stays silver under Peal Amethyst. When silver is reduced and encased on top of Pale Amethyst, it develops a bluish haze.

Pale Amethyst is a decent base colour for silver glass, but it doesn't cause any magic to happen. in the striking silver glass frit. I quite like the way the reduction frit looks.

On top of Pale Amethyst, Copper Green separates and Ivory spreads and looks 'floaty'. Ivory and Peace both spread like mad on top of it, but Opal Yellow stays crisp and thin. Other than those observations, there's not much more to see here. Pale Amethyst is not very reactive.

Test Results :: Oracle746.pst

Double Helix Oracle746.pst is a very pale green opaque colour. It's very well-behaved, and I quite like it as a cooler base colour.

This colour does not change when you reduce it.

Oracle746pst is quite reactive with silver. You can see in the leftmost bead that the silver all turned brown on top of it. Reducing and encasing the silver gets rid of the brown, instead making the silver silvery again under the clear in a gentle, mother-of-pearl way with hints of blue and pink.

I was expecting, because of the strong reactions with silver, for this glass to foster colour in my striking silver glass a bit more, but I was wrong. My reduced silver glass frit fumed this colour a bright yellow.

I would not call this colour reactive with other colours, either.  It is, however, prone to separate. You can see here how it has done that under Tuxedo and on top of basically everything.  Ivory both spread like mad on top of it.

Here are some other beads that include Oracle746pst.

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 :: 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 :: Lilac

CiM Lilac (CiM912) is a pretty, soft pink with lavender overtones.  It reminds me a lot of Heffalump, although Heffalump is much more on the purple side.

Lilac does not change colour when you reduce it. Here, the smaller bead on the right was reduced but the larger bead was not.

Silver turns Lilac a golden yellow colour. When the silver is reduced and encased, this colour change is much less pronounced.

Reducing silver glass is very pretty on top of Lilac, with the fritty bits developing interesting halos and fuming the Lilac an  uneven yellowish colour. As a base for striking silver glass, Lilac is unremarkable.

Lilac separates on top of Ivory, Tuxedo, and Copper Green, and in thin layers is quite translucent.

Lilac rises up in  halos around Tuxedo stringer lines and dots. Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace all spread on top of Lilac.

Here are some other beads that include Lilac:

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.