Test Results :: Oracle751.pst

Double Helix Oracle751.pst is a soft, slightly off-white opaque. I enjoyed this colour most in layered dot beads with other, brighter colours. While this colour has a bit of translucence in thin layers, it still provides good coverage. Its slight translucence increases its appeal to me as a layering colour since the light can play in and around it in more interesting ways than with colours that are more fully opaque.

Oracle751.pst does not change when it is reduced.

This colour fumes yellow with silver. When encased, this combination's appearance does not change.

You can see the yellow fuming here with the reducing silver glass frit as well.  I didn't get a very interesting starting strike from my TerraNova2 frit with this Oracle751.pst, but it was enough that I can see this colour as a passable (if not magical) base for silver glass.

Tuxedo bleeds into this colour something fierce, and you can see that around the Tuxedo stringer lines and dots, the Oracle751.pst has gone quite bluish. You can also see the transparency of this colour in thin layers where I've used it over Tuxedo. Apart from that and this colour's tendency to separate on top of Ivory, I did not notice anything else of significance.

Here are some fun beads with Oracle751.pst:

Test Results :: Oracle752.opl

Double Helix Oracle752.opl is a semi-opaque white colour.  It is a fairly inert colour, and really shines through when used on its own or as a base colour. Because it is semi-opaque, light moves in and around it in interesting ways, making it more visually interesting than White.

The thicker it is applied, the more opaque it appears, which you can see very clearly in this image, where I have two spacers of it side-by-side, the left one about 30% bigger than the right.

Silver turns a mustardy yellow on top of Oracle-752.opl, When you reduce and encase the silver, the yellowishness mostly goes away and leaves an ethereal, silvery pattern underneath the clear.

This colour is not especially interesting with silver glass, either.

And here, you can see that it is very inert with other colours.  Almost everything spreads on top of it.

Here is a fun bead with this colour.  It really shines on its own, and I like it in thin layers so that it keeps its translucency. Although this goddess bead is quite thick in places, it appears much more translucent than the photo lets on.

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 :: Oracle White

Double Helix Oracle White is a white, opaque glass. It is stiffer than either Peace or Effetre White, and reacts similarly to silver as other white glasses do, but its reactions with other colours are more unique.

Because this colour is stiffer, it is well-suited to applications like stringer and sculptural work. As you'll see, Oracle White is a little more translucent, so when it is used on top of a dark colour in thin layers, a tint of the base colour shows through. Because more light passes through it, Oracle White's colour is a little brighter than that of either CiM Peace or Effetre White.

This white  also seems like it is a little more difficult to smear than other whites, making it great for flower petals in encased florals.

Oracle White does not change when you reduce it.

Here is CiM Peace, Double Helix Oracle White, and Effetre White all side-by-each on top of Oracle Black. Oracle White is a bit less opaque than either Peace or Effetre White, but not so much that it doesn't show well over a dark colour. It still covers reasonably well, so if you happen to be looking for a cooler, lighter effect, it can be a good choice for stringerwork.

If you blow the picture up really big, you can see that Oracle White and Peace both get a slight border around them on top of the Oracle Black.

Here I mixed Oracle White and Effetre White with Effetre Light Cobalt. Light Cobalt is a really saturated colour, and I thought it would be a good test to evaluate whether Oracle White is more translucent than Effetre White and CiM Peace because it is less saturated, or if there might be some other reason. In my results, the blue that resulted from the Oracle White mix is a bit darker, which helps to support my theory that this White is slightly less saturated than the CiM and Effetre ones.

Oracle White's reactions with silver are very similar to what I experienced with other Whites. If you're interested, you can look back at my test results for other whites: Effetre White, CiM Peace, Ornela Chalk White, Lauscha Kryolith White, Reichenbach White.

In the bead on the left, I've reduced silver glass frit on top of Oracle White, and you can see that it has fumed the White yellow in places. The bead on the right has TerraNova2 frit. It is probably very possible to get silver glass to strike well on top of this colour, but what I am testing when I do this particular test is to see if the base colour has any magic in it that will make getting great colour out of the silver glass easier. Wait until you see my silver and silver glass tests on Oracle Black, and you will see what I mean by 'magic'.

Tuxedo spreads on top of this colour, bleeding into it, and Oracle White separates on top of Ivory. These reactions are not like the reactions I've had with other whites.

Here are some other beads that include Oracle White:

Test Results :: Peppermint Cream

Peppermint Cream (CiM488) is a pale, yellowish green opaque colour. It is soft and creamy, and my rods were very well behaved, not shocking at all in the flame. It reminds me quite a bit of an older colour called Linen, except that it has a greenish cast to it.

Nothing of any significance happens when you reduce Peppermint Cream.

This colour is a touch lighter than Dirty Martini and just a shade or two yellower.

When I encased Peppermint Cream after putting silver on it, it cracked under my Effetre 006 Clear. This doesn't mean you shouldn't encase it, but it definitely means that you shouldn't encase it after putting silver on it. This has happened to me with other colours that are otherwise perfectly compatible like Effetre Petroleum Green and CiM Linen. Just proceed with caution, and make a test bead before embarking on a big run of beads the way you always should anyway.

Peppermint Cream seems to be an average base colour for silver glass. It fumed a bit when I reduced the reduction frit, and the TerraNova2 frit started to strike, but no magic happened.

Peppermint Cream is not terribly reactive, but it does separate on top of Tuxedo and Ivory.  On top of Tuxedo, it has a milk-moustache sort of appearance, almost translucent.

Other colours (Ivory, Opal Yellow, Copper Green, Tuxedo) all seem to spread out on top of it.

Also, you can see in the Tuxedo dots and stringer lines that Peppermint Cream made Tuxedo bleed out into it quite a bit.

Here are some other beads that include some Peppermint Cream:

Test Results :: Gellys Sty

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, and Peace

CiM Gellys Sty (darnit, I always want to put an apostrophe in it!) is a cool, beautiful, vibrant light pink opaque. It is reactive with silver, makes an interesting base for silver glass, and is full of interesting reactions with other colours.

In the leftmost bead, you can see that the silver has sort of crusted up on the surface of the Gellys Sty. It has also turned the Gellys Sty a really uncharacteristic brown colour.  The brown fuming is not evident at all in the reduced/encased bead, having disappeared. In the bead on the right where I reduced and encased the silver, it has a shiny, mother-of-pearl with blue highlights look to it under the clear encasement, and the Gellys Sty has faded to a yellowish colour in places.

You can see this yellowing in the leftmost bead of this pair as well.  It must be reducing it that makes it turn yellow, since the unreduced beads in both sets of test beads do not have the yellowing and the reduced ones do.  In the bead on the right, you can see that I was starting to get some interesting colour out of my TerraNova2 frit, so I think that this colour will make an above average base colour for striking silver glasses.

Most of the interesting reactions with Gellys Sty seem to occur when Gellys Sty is the base colour and other colours are used on top of it.

When Tuxedo is used on top of Gellys Sty, it spreads and webs a little.  The Gellys Sty separates and curdles underneath it, exaggerating the effect.  In the rightmost bead, where I used Gellys Sty on top of Tuxedo, the Gellys Sty has curdled in its dots and stringer lines, looking all striated.

Copper Green makes Gellys Sty separate when used on top of it.

Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace all spread on top of Gellys Sty. They also seem to lose a bit of their cohesion on top of this colour.  The colour out of the three that this happens to in the most pronounced way is Ivory, because you can see in the leftmost bead how the Ivory has curdled and frizzed up on top of the Gellys Sty. Interestingly enough, when Gellys Sty is used on top of these colours, nothing very interesting happens at all.

Sadly, I don't have any interesting 'fun beads' to show with Gellys Sty because I switched gears after making these beads. I will come back to it eventually, and I will add more bead pictures here when I do.

Test Results :: Sprout

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 and Peace

Both CiM Sprout and CiM Cardamom are light green opaque colours, however what I'm seeing is that Sprout is a bit lighter, and much less yellow. It's a brighter, more cheerful colour than CiM's other production pale green, Dirty Martini (which I have yet to test.... hopefully soon!), which I love very much. All of these colours are wonderful, but I think Sprout might just be my favourite of the three.

Sprout's reaction profile is much different than Cardamom's, and I won't be able to compare it to how Dirty Martini behaves until I've tested that colour. However at first blush I think I'll guess that these reactions and the reactions Dirty Martini shows us will have more in common than the reactions I got with Cardamom.

Sprout doesn't seem to change colour or have any other odd surface reaction when it is reduced.

On top of Sprout, silver turns a pinkish orange colour when it is simply burnished on and then melted into the surface of the glass. When the silver is reduced and encased, it forms a pinkish peach 'blanket' under the clear.

The other thing that's very interesting about the bead I reduced and encased is that the colour of the Sprout has turned very yellow, looking much more like CiM Cardamom. What I don't know (because I didn't test it *sigh*) is whether the silver is necessary for this discolouration or if Sprout will always look yellower under encasement.  It's hard to think of everything... especially since everything just looks orange when it's hot.

Another plus: Sprout didn't crack when I encased it.

Now, I'm not thrilled with the colours that Sprout pulled out of my silver glass, but I think there's some interesting potential here. In the bead on the left, with my reducing silver glass frit, you can see some brownish/yellowish fuming around some of the fritty bits. I got nice blues and nice shine out of my frit blend on that bead.

Regarding the bead on the right, I got a few good colour spots from my TerraNova2 frit which seem to indicate that the striking might just be slower on top of this colour. The most exciting thing about this bead is the weird haloed veining that occurred in the Sprout underneath the TerraNova2. You can see the light green that has risen up around the frit, and then the much darker green, grouty 'veins' between them. Neat.

When Tuxedo is used on top of Sprout, some subtle bleeding occurs. You can see that the Sprout, around the Tuxedo, has turned darker and sort of blueish. When Sprout is used on top of Tuxedo, the Sprout separates. And it separates in the exact opposite way from how colours usually separate, with the thinned out, translucent side of the separation on the outside of the dots and stringer lines and the more opaque centre of the separation being on the inside of the dots and stringer lines. Weird.

Sprout seems to be another one of those colours that helps Copper Green not to go all grey when they are used together. On top of Sprout, Copper Green seems to develop a faint dark line reaction. When Sprout is used on top of Copper Green, the line is turquoise.

Opal Yellow on top of Sprout is pure weirdness. The Opal Yellow has spread, and my dots and lines seem almost to form a mosaic, with darker veins like grout between them. The effect is especially cool because there is also a pale green halo around the Opal Yellow, resulting in two distinct reaction lines instead of the usual one. Opal Yellow seems to want to strike very butter-yellow both on top of and underneath this colour, although in a sort of patchy way.

Ivory on top of Sprout has to be the coolest thing in these tests. Like Opal Yellow, Ivory spreads out on top of Sprout and develops faint green halos around it and that interesting green grout reaction. Ivory has the additional feature of having separated in a wierd, shaded way. It almost looks like someone drew the Ivory lines on with oil pastels and did some blending, because the effect is very stylized. When Sprout is used on top of Ivory, it sort of gets swallowed.

Nothing very interesting happens between Sprout and Peace, but it's hard to feel sad about that when there's so much else going on. If anything, Peace seems to steal colour from the Sprout because my white lines and dots don't look all that white on top of Sprout.

So, now I need to tell you that there isn't much of this available. Frantz Art Glass has it in their funhouse currently, and you can buy 1/4# at a time. If you really have a burning need for this colour, the best place I've found to purchase it  is at Artistry in Glass in Ontario, because they haven't imposed a quantity limit.

Test Results :: Opal Yellow

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, Ivory and Peace

Effetre Opal Yellow is one of my favourite colours, and is on my list of colours where, if it were to suddenly be no longer available, I would be a very sad girl indeed. Opal Yellow is a very stable base colour, the only weird thing about it being that it tends to blush pink when either silver is added or it is struck repeatedly. It's versatile - there's almost nothing that you would want do do with a glass colour (apart from encase, since it's opaque) that you can't do with Opal Yellow. It makes a great base for silver glass, and because it is not super-reactive, it can be used in combinations with most other colours (with the possible exception of colours in the 'sulfur' family, like Ivory) without worry.

Here you can see how the Opal Yellow has gone quite pink after adding the silver. It's more pronounced in the bead on the left. The silver leaf when left unencased kinda sits on the surface of Opal Yellow and doesn't do anything all that magical. The appearance of it is not improved by encasing it - it turns it a light pink colour that is sort of  lost against the yellow. OK, so there's one thng that Opal Yellow isn't so good at. :)

Opal Yellow loves silver glass. It's a great base colour for both striking and reducing silver glass colours. In both of my test beads, the silver glass got great colour and did exactly what I expected it to do.

When Tuxedo is used over Opal Yellow, it bleeds. You can see a faint blueish stain around my Tuxedo stringer work in the bead on the left. On top of Tuxedo, the edges of Opal Yellow look sort of indistinct and sort of like a milk moustache.

Opal Yellow is another colour that keeps Copper Green from getting that greyish film on it. My Copper Green in these beads looks bright and beautiful. The most interesting thing about Copper Green and Opal Yellow is the faint line that develops between them. When Opal Yellow is used on top of Copper Green, it develops a faint dark turquoise line around it. When instead Copper Green is used on top of Opal Yellow, the line that forms is more of an orange colour. In both cases, it is the colour used as an accent that develops a faint separation reaction.

We've seen this before in my test results for Ivory and Dark Ivory, but Opal Yellow and Ivory don't so much get along. Ivory tends to go grey on top of Opal Yellow.

Peace dots and lines on top of Opal Yellow get a rosy orangey look to the edges and separate slightly. As a result, they almost disappear on top of the bead. When Opal Yellow is used on top of Peace, it seems even more inclined than usual to blush a pinkish colour.

In this bead, I used Opal Yellow as the base colour for the frame. I then liberally striped it with Silvered Ivory Stringer. The rod of Opal Yellow I used here was from a strangely pale batch, and it really reacted with the Silvered Ivory, resulting in it having a very aged appearance to it.

 

This fun set is made with KUG Pea Green, CiM Phoenix, EFF Periwinkle and EFF Opal Yellow. I love the reactions in these beads, which seem to be mostly due to the Pea Green. I haven't tested Pea Green yet, but will someday soon. Kugler Pea Green used to be known as ASK Mediterranean Olive.

This is Opal Yellow with Precision 104 Black Pearl. I love the reactions.

This one is Opal Yellow with a rainbow wigwag, rainbow murrini, and Hades decoration.