Test Results :: Peacock Feather / Surfs Up

CiM Peacock Feather (CiM576) and Surf's Up (CiM575) are Opal and Misty Opal versions of a gorgeous turquoise colour. They have interesting reactions with other colours, and seem like a good base for silver glass. I made these beads with Peacock Feather, but I expect the reactions for Surf's Up would be quite similar.

The spacer on the right is not really darker, it is just smaller and is letting through more of the dark grey base I take my photos on. Reducing Peacock Feather doesn't change its colour.

Silver gets all beaded and crusty on top of Peacock Feather. When the silver is reduced and encased, it forms a mottled silvery blanket under the clear with hints of blue haze.

The reducing silver glass frit is not very interesting on top of this colour, but I did get a nice starting strike from the striking silver glass.

Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace all separate when used with Peacock Feather.

These beads contain Peacock Feather or Surf's Up:

Peacock Feather

Surf's Up

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 :: Summer Haze / Lemongrass

CiM Summer Haze (CiM321) and CiM Lemongrass (CiM320) are essentially the same colour, except that Lemongrass is a little more opaque. They work up a gorgeous, smokey lemon yellow. The glass in these test beads is Summer Haxe, but there are beads with both Lemongrass and Summer Haze towards the end of this post. Because these colours are essentially the same formula according to CiM, I only did the colour test with one of them but I am sure that there are some subtle differences.

Reducing Summer Haze didn't really alter its colour. It might have gotten a bit darker, but I also need to remember that it is a smaller bead on a dark background, which probably explains the colour difference in the two beads above all by itself.

Silver develops a slight 'mistiness' on top of Summer Haze, and when the silver is reduced and encased it shows some areas with blue halos under the encasement layer When you use Summer Haze over silver foil, the foil turns bright gold. This means that Summer Haze has interesting potential as a base colour for silver glass frit stringer.

Summer Haze is an unusually good base colour for silver glass. My reducing silver glass and striking silver glass both really bloomed on top of it.

Summer Haze is not a very reactive colour, but it did cause separation in Opal Yellow, Ivory, Peace, and Copper Green in my test beads.

Here are some other beads made with Lemongrass and Summer Haze.

Lemongrass

Lemongrass

Summer Haze

Test Beads :: Mantis

Creation is Messy Mantis (CiM472) is a pretty, medium green translucent colour. It is the misty opal cousin of Eclectus Parrot, and like that colour, Mantis is very nice to work with. It doesn't boil and bubble crazily when you heat it, and it stays this beautiful, milky translucent colour no matter how long you work it.

Reducing Mantis doesn't change its colour.

Silver is gorgeous with Mantis, and you can see blue haze forming around it even before the silver is reduced and encased.

And following on the promise that it showed with silver, silver glass on Mantis is magical. I got really interesting surface outlining and haze with my reducing silver glass frit, and my TerraNova2 frit struck on top of it right away in a beautiful array of purples and burgundies with interesting yellow and dark outlining.

For some reason, my silver glass results are more interesting with this colour than they were with Eclectus Parrot. Maybe whatever makes this colour 'misty' also makes it love silver glass more.

Mantis is not very reactive with other colours, but Opal Yellow separates on top of it and Copper Green looks very ominously grey on top of it.

Here is a bead pair with Mantis:

Test Results :: Egg White

Egg White (CiM319) is a pale yellow semi-opaque colour. It's beautifully translucent and only a little reactive with silver. I found some sort of magical reactions when I went through my test set.

I found that once I got the hang of working it a bit higher up in the flame and with less intense heat that I got much fewer of these little white snail trails in the glass. It's good that they're easy to avoid, because they don't really improve the colour.

Silver spreads out and beads up in little circles all over the surface of Egg White. If you encase silver foil with Egg White, you can expect for the silver to turn a bright golden yellow. The bead furthest to the right is the big star here, with my encased and reduced silver leaf over egg white turned lacy, silvery, and blue in a very interesting way.

In the bead where I used and reduced silver glass reduction frit, the Egg White underneath fumes a greenish yellow. My TerraNova2 frit started to strike, but this glass is not an accellerant.

On top of Egg White, Copper Green stays very clean looking and separates into two very different colours. The dots and lines of it look almost like they have depth because of the amount and seriousness of the separation.

Opal Yellow separates on top of Egg White.

Using Egg White stringer on top of Opal Yellow and Ivory creates an interesting amount of depth and colour shift to the base colour underneath. I'm going to need to experiment with this some more.

Here are some other beads made with Egg White.

Test Results :: Ectoplasm

Ectoplasm (CiM474) is a medium-to-light green semi-opaque colour that is a bit more muted than some of the other new shades of green in this new lineup of CiM colours. It is a pretty shade of green, has interesting reactions with other colours, and is nice with both silver and silver glass.

Here you can see that Ectoplasm doesn't change colour when you reduce it. The smaller bead only looks a bit darker in this picture because more of the dark background is visible through it because it has less glass than the other bead.

Silver leaf makes a playful, shiny, lacy design on top of Ectoplasm. When the silver is reduced and encased, it fills out to a more uniform shiny blanket with blue fume visible in it.

Ectoplasm seems to make a pretty nice base colour for silver glass.

On top of Ectoplasm, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace all separate.

The most interesting reaction in these beads, though, is where I used Ectoplasm on top of Ivory. In the beads above, you can see that where Ectoplasm is over Ivory, it spreads out and the Ivory rises up around it in a feathery layer that looks almost 3-dimensional. Cool.

Here are some other beads made with Ectoplasm.

Test Results :: Petroleum Green

Effetre Petroleum Green (EFF218) is a pretty teal green opaque colour. I had never really used it before I made these beads and some things about it really surprised me.

The things that I found surprising about this colour will maybe not come as surprises to you. For one thing, this colour is very, very streaky. You can see streaks in it when you make simple spacers, and it separates like mad on top of just about everything. It's also very soft -- much softer than using other opaque teals like CiM Mermaid and Effetre Marine Green will prepare you to expect.

I expected Petroleum Green to turn red when I reduced it, but it didn't.

Silver isn't very interesting on top of Petroleum Green until you reduce and encase it and it turns a bright mustard colour. Petroleum Green has this yellow-with-silver-under-clear thing in common with Copper Green, Light Teal, Light Aqua, and Celadon.

Unfortunately, encasing the reduced silver will crack your bead. If you've made beads before with Petroleum Green and silver and then encased your beads with Effetre Super Clear only to find they cracked... well... me too.

Silver Glass is interesting on top of Petroleum Green. Because the Petroleum Green is so very soft, it rises up and swallows frit pretty easily, which is why you might be wondering why I didn't put more frit on the leftmost bead. It is a decent base for striking silver glass colours - my TerraNova2 frit got a very nice starting strike.

As I mentioned already, Petroleum Green separates on top of everyhing. It also gets a creeping brown reaction line with Ivory that is not very uniform.

Opal Yellow and Copper Green both separate on top of this colour.

Here are some beads made with Petroleum Green.