Product Review :: New CiM Cloudy Transparents

I am crazy about so many of these new CiM colours and I will be coming back to blog about some of them in greater detail over the next few months. Because the volume of colours this time is so big, I wanted to make sure that I at least posted some initial impressions and photos of them all but will do my detailed colour explorations only for those colours that I decide to incorporate into my palette more permanently. I made this decision after I had already dived in and done a bit of testing, so you will see some more detailed posts for a few colours right away, beginning next week.

I haven't used all the colours yet, and this post will be focused on what I've been making with some of the new Cloudy Transparent colours. I really like this new rod format with the pigment filaments suspended in Clear, and I am hoping for a whole range of colours in the future. I think that a dark blue, a dark teal, and some bright oranges, pinks, and yellows would be particularly fun.

In general, I have found the Cloudy Transparent colours to be a bit shocky. For for the most part, this was quite manageable and well worth the effort, at least for the colours I've tried so far. Heather is the one that I've had the most trouble with out of this group. Another thing common to all of these colours (so far) is that they can be easy to boil, so you really have to watch your heat. This is true not only with fine stringer, but also when applying the glass from the rod to your bead. Work higher up in the flame and a bit cooler to avoid this problem. I have not specifically tested any of these for colour reactions yet. When I do, I might find out something interesting, but so far they do not seem very reactive with other colours.

These beads all contain Heather (CiM922) or Luzern (CiM924). The only real difference between these glasses for me was that my rods of Luzern had more colour density. Heather and Luzern are a magenta/lilac-coloured streaky transparent where the pigment filaments are suspended in clear glass. Both of these colours are stunning, and I am hoping to get some more of at least one of them.

   

Colours: CiM Heather/Luzern, CiM Sunset, Effetre Opal Yellow, 

Effetre Light Turquoise, CiM Loch Ness, CiM Serenity, CiM Circus Tent, 

Effetre Super Clear, and various colours of enamel.

Fruit Punch (CiM730) is described as a reddish brown cloudy transparent but I found that it lightened substantially while I worked it and came out looking more like a cloudy pinkish peach colour.

 

Colours: CiM Fruit Punch, CiM Sunset, Reichenbach Pink Lady, CiM Serenity, 

Effetre Light Turquoise, CiM Adamantium, Effetre Opal Yellow, and various colours of enamel.

Chocolate (CiM731) is a gorgeous, deep, dark brown transparent colour. Out of all the new cloudy transparents, this one might be the one I am most excited about. Because it is a very dark colour, when used in thick layers this colour is a very opaque deep brown, but you can lighten it as much as you want by applying it in thinner layers on top of other colours. This offers quite a lot of flexibility when you're designing with it.

 

Colours: CiM Chocolate, CiM Light Turquoise, Effetre Opal Yellow, Effetre Light Red, 

CiM Sunset, CiM Loch Ness, CiM Serenity, and various colours of enamel.

CiM Watermelon (CiM219) is a bright coral cloudy transparent that darkened a little as I worked it. I really liked it. I am wondering if it could have been made even more beautiful by suspending the coral filiments in a very pale pink instead of clear.

Colours: CiM Watermelon, CiM Chocolate, Effetre Opal Yellow, 

CiM Sunset, Reichenbach Pink Lady, and CiM Loch Ness.

And finally, this last bead is made with a colour that I don't think will be for sale (at least not this time around), doesn't have a name, and is a bright, royal blue cloudy transparent. In these beads, you can see both how the bright blue base looks almost opaque, and how the same colour in a thin layer in the bead's raised dot decoration looks streaky and wispy and almost transparent.

What a lot of fun! I can't wait to see where CiM takes this product line in the future.

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.