Test Results :: Strawberry Sweet

Vetrofond Strawberry Sweet (VET994) is no longer in production, but it is still available at many vendors. You could also try Effetre Spanish Leather if you are looking for something similar but can't find this particular colour. Strawberry Sweet's main advantage over Spanish Leather is that it is less shocky, but Spanish Leather is also a lovely colour and very close to it in hue.

Strawberry Sweet does not noticeably change colour when it is reduced.

Like many other colours in the Red-Orange-Yellow-Ivory colour family, this colour turns dark with the addition of silver, and silver turns beige and blue on top of it. Encasing this reaction darkens it slightly.

Strawberry Sweet makes an average base colour for silver glass. My reducing silver glass frit popped on it better than my TerraNova2 frit did.

Here, you can see that Strawberry Sweet and Copper Green have a reciprocal dark line reaction. Also, Strawberry Sweet separates a little on top of Opal Yellow and Ivory thins out at its edges when it is used on top of this colour. Apart from that, nothing really odd reactionwise happened in this colour test set.

Here are some other beads that include Strawberry Sweet.

Test Results :: Juniper

CiM Juniper (CiM459) reminds me a lot of another Limited Run called Army Men, except that Juniper is more on the blue side and maybe a bit lighter than that colour. This colour is very similar in hue to ASK Aloe Vera / Kugler Isar Blue, although it is a touch lighter and less reactive. Juniper is quite a pretty colour, which helped me to forgive it for being a bit shocky. It is very streaky.

Juniper doesn't change when you reduce it.

Here is Juniper with Effetre Green Cave, CiM Commando, CiM Eucalyptus, CiM Split Pea, and Effetre Moss Green.

It is darker and bluer than Split Pea, and is both brighter and bluer than Commando.

Unlike CiM Army Men, Juniper does not yellow with the addition of silver. Reducing and encasing silver on top of Juniper makes the silver into a smooth silvery blanket that turns blue at its edges.

Striking silver glass is pretty on top of Juniper. I got a beautiful starting strike our of my TerraNova2 frit.

Juniper separates on top of everything I used it with here except for CiM Peace.  Copper Green, Opal Yellow, and Ivory all separate on top of Juniper. Additionally, when these other colours are used on top of Juniper, it takes on a quite billowing, curdled appearance underneath the other colours.  I love that this colour does not develop a dark line reaction with Ivory.

Here are some other beads that include some Juniper.

Test Results :: Canoe

CiM Canoe is a gorgeous, tawny striking brown. People who make sculptural animal beads are going to go nuts for this colour, since it is decidedly lion-coloured. It's also really well-suited to organic bead designs, because it's fabulously reactive without any of those reactions causing unpleasant blackening and muckiness.

This colour is a striking colour. These spacers were made at the same time, but the rightmost one got an extra blast of heat in a reduction flame before being popped into the kiln, resulting in a darker, warmer colour.

Here is Canoe with Kugler Beadmaking 104 Silver Petrol (previously known as ASK Silver Rattan), CiM Pumpkin Unique #1, ASK Caramel Apple (now known as Iris Savanne), Kugler Silver Brown (previously known as ASK Silver Cinnamon), and CiM Stone Ground.

ASK Silver Brown, in this picture, looks almost the same colour as Canoe, but I don't think that Canoe, even with the addition of silver, strikes to as dark a colour as Silver Brown does. Canoe is substantially browner and darker than Stone Ground.

The addition of silver darkens the colour of Canoe. When I reduced and encased silver leaf with Zephyr on top of Canoe, my bead cracked. The crack is an incompatibility crack, occurring both lengthwise and across the bead hole. So, encase this colour with caution, and maybe not with Zephyr and silver.

Oh my, this colour is gorgeous with silver glass. My silver glass reduction frit bloomed like crazy on top of this colour, engulfing the Canoe between the fritty bits. I also got beautiful colour from my TerraNova2 frit, which spread like crazy on top of this colour.

I had hoped that, since this colour was so much like the ASK browns both in the rod and in small beads, that it would have similar reactions. It doesn't, which is a bit sad since our last Kugler Beadmaking 104 vendor here in North America has recently decided to discontinue their sales of 104 CoE glass entirely. However, this colour is very interestingly reactive in its own right.

When Tuxedo is used on top of this colour, the Canoe rises up in halos around the Tuxedo stringerwork.

Canoe and Copper Green have a mutual separation thing -- it separates on top of Copper Green, asnd Copper Green separates on top of it. In both cases, a faint brownish line forms around the colour that is on top.

Canoe and Opal Yellow also mutually separate when used on top of one another. Where Canoe is on Opal Yellow, the separation is almost violent, looking fissure-like in the middle of the stringer lines. Opal Yellow separates a bit more gently, and spreads like crazy on top of Canoe.

On top of Ivory, Canoe looks darker than it does on top of other colours, and a dark line froms around its dots and stringer lines. The Ivory also bleeds into it, feathering at the edges of the Canoe decoration. Ivory separates on top of Canoe, and becomes surrounded by a dark Canoe halo.

Peace spreads on top of Canoe, but does not otherwise react with it.

Here is an organic bead made using Canoe both as the base colour and as part of the surface decoration.

Test Results :: Pachyderm

CiM Pachyderm is a warm, light beige opaque colour. It's lovely with silver, and moderately reactive with other colours.

Pachyderm is reputed to be a striking colour, but I did not get a range of different tones from it. Here, you can see that these beads are the same colour, even though the rightmost one has been reheated in a reduction flame. Possibly a more aggressive reheating would be necessary to get a colour change in striking.

The colours shown here with Pachyderm are Effetre Sage, Effetre Avocado, CiM African Gray, CiM Koala, and Effetre Sediment. I chose these colours because their rod colours weren't all that different from Pachyderm's before I melted them.  Pachyderm is pinker than all of these other colours, and lighter than all but African Gray. Out of the ones I chose, it is closest to African Gray, although that colour lacks the pinkish cast that Pachyderm has.

Silver on top of this colour makes the colour darken to a much richer brown. When the silver is reduced and encased, it turns blue.

Pachyderm is a very nice base colour for silver glass, both the reducing kind and the striking kind. It fumed brown around my reducing silver glass frit in a beautifully dramatic way, and I got great colour out of my TerraNova2 frit on top of this colour.

This colour has a lot of interesting reaction potential.

Pachyderm separates on top of Tuxedo. When Tuxedo is used on top of Pachyderm, the Pachyderm rises up around it in halos.

Pachyderm has a reciprocal dark line reaction with Copper Green. This dark line is not black like what happens with Ivory - it's more of a darker version of its unaltered self. Pachyderm also separates on top of Copper Green, and Copper Green separates very dramatically on top of Pachyderm.

On top of Opal Yellow, Pachyderm separates and seems to strike to a warmer brown colour.  When Opal Yellow is used on top of Pachyderm, it spreads like crazy, and also separates slightly.

Pachyderm separates on top of Ivory.  Ivory separates on top of Pachyderm, and also spreads quite dramatically.

Here's a goddess bead made from Pachyderm swirled with my Candy Floss frit blend.

Test Results :: Light Pink (Bubblegum)

Effetre Light Pink (EFF260) is another colour that I am pretty late in trying. I've never been all that into pink, but like just about everything else in my life over the last few years, that seems to have changed.

The batch of Light Pink that I have tested here is a sort of famous one called Bubblegum. I'm not sure how similar or different to this one other batches of Light Pink have been. Sometimes a new batch of glass is given a special name for an important technical or aesthetic reason because it works differently or is a markedly different colour, but sometimes this happens by mistake (the glass looks different in the rod but is identical to a previous batch once melted) or as a marketing ploy. It's impossible for me to know for sure how 'special' this batch was without doing some further testing and investigation.

Light Pink doesn't change colour when you reduce it, and doesn't acquire any sort of special surface finish.

Here, you can see this colour with some other colours in the same hue group. It's lighter and cooler than both CiM Desert Pink and Gelly's Sty, pinker than Vetrofond Light Pink, and both pinker and substantially darker than Effetre White Rose and Silver Pink.

Light Pink turns yellow when you put silver on it. When the silver is reduced and encased, the yellowing of the base colour remains but the silver turns whitish.

Reducing silver glass on top of Light Pink fumes the Light Pink a brownish yellow colour. Light Pink makes an indifferent base colour for striking silver glass.

Light Pink separates on top of Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, and Ivory.  Ivory and Opal Yellow both separate on top of Light Pink.

When Tuxedo is used on top of Light Pink, the Light Pink rises up around it in halos.

When Ivory is used on top of Light Pink, a visual fissure shows at the edges of the dots and stringer lines, giving the stringerwork a 3-dimensional look.

Here are some other beads made using Light Pink of the Bubblegum variety:

Test Results :: Pastel Blue

Reichenbach Pastel Blue (RL3203) is a gorgeous medium turquoise colour.  It's extremely soft, so maybe not the best and least frustrating choice for sculptural work, but it seems to be magical with silver glass and it's very reactive and fun with other colours.

Here's a bunch of tricolour beads that give you an idea how it compares to the other turquoises out there colour-wise.  I made these when I was playing with CiM Quetzal, which is also gorgeous. Kathy, if you're reading this, make more Quetzal please :D

Like some of the other Reichenbach glasses (Raku, Iris Dense Blue) it is very, very "fast" and I've found that it is important to be vigilant with these super-runny colours to make sure that the bead goes into the kiln very cool, otherwise it sticks to other things in there.  It's always important, of course, to be careful of this, but these supersoft, supersaturated colours remain tacky longer than most.

If you reduce Pastel Blue you get a brick red colour.  I found that this effect developed in a blotchy way, but I only did it the once and so that might have been anomaly.  Something that happened with the reduction that I was not expecting is the iridescence that developed on the surface. Most turquoises get the red patina, although it is not always this dark and rich of a red, but this is the only one I've tried that also got a shiny oilslick finish.

This colour turns silver yellow, both when it is and is not encased. The silver isn't very visible on the surface of the unreduced bead because it has dispersed across the surface, but if you reduce it and encase it, you can see that it's still very much there.  Not maybe the most attractive combination, but I like to see how all of the glasses behave with silver :)

Like other turquoises, reducing silver glass is a bit of a wash on this colour because it doesn't provide much contrast, but I got some beautiful colours out of my TerraNova2 frit.

Pastel Blue sort of lost its opacity when used on top of Tuxedo and I'm not sure how to describe what happened. My Pastel Blue dots and lines on top of Tuxedo have a translucent, battered appearance and look almost purple in places.  And then in the rightmost bead, you can see that when I used Tuxedo on top of Pastel Blue, nothing interesting happened at all. Weird.

Pastel Blue separates on top of Copper Green, and Copper Green separates on top of Pastel Blue. Reciprocity!

Pastel Blue loses some of its opacity and develops a dark vein of blueness through the centre of stringer lines drawn on top of Opal Yellow. On top of Pastel Blue, Opal Yellow separates and looks distinctly yellow. Much yellower than it looked when I used it as the base colour.

Pastel Blue and Ivory develop a black line reaction between them. As an added bonus, Pastel Blue takes on a mottled appearance on top of Ivory which I rather like. This is worth doing more of.

I had a bit of a brain fart when I made these beads and after making the one with the Pastel Blue base, I couldn't figure out whether I'd used Opal Yellow or Peace where I was meant to be placing the Peace stringer lines and dots.  To compensate, I made an extra bead that had Peace on top of Pastel Blue, just in case. In that extra little bead, you can see that on top of Pastel Blue, Peace does not really react at all.  On top of Peace, Pastel Blue spreads and looks translucent.

I only had a small amount of this colour, so I haven't been able to do much with it.  I made these beads with Pastel Blue, Purple Rose, and something else that I don't remember.

 

Test Results :: Pastel Ink Blue

Some distributors call this colour Pastel Ink Blue, Some leave off the word 'Pastel' and simply call it Ink Blue, and Frantz uniquely calls it Lavender Blue Light.  For clarity, I'll add that it's Effetre #247, but I think of it as Pastel Ink Blue, so for the purposes of this post you will have to as well.

Pastel Ink Blue is a medium indigo opaque.  It is greyer and purpler (is that word?) than Periwinkle, and it is bluer than the Effetre light violet pastels (272, 273). Depending on what you use it with, it can look more grey than either blue or purple, so choosing the right accompaniments is very important, unless purplish grey is what you are after.

This colour is also very, very soft.  I think it is even softer than White, Ivory, and Opal Yellow.

Here in these self-coloured spacers, you can see that reducing Pastel Ink Blue doesn't have any effect on its colour.

Pastel Ink Blue is not adversely reactive with silver.  The silver spread out on top of it and can't even be seen in my leftmost bead apart from some little glints where it's reflecting the light and a bit of mottling it caused on the surface of the Pastel Ink Blue.  The mottling is pretty interesting to me - I haven't seen a lot of that with this test.  In the bead on the right, you can see that reducing and encasing the silver on top of Pastel Ink Blue has resulted in a soft white blankety effect, which is lacy where the silver has dispersed in a non-uniform way.

Reducing my silver glass frit on top of Pastel Ink Blue resulted in a brownish haze overtaking the base colour. In both of these beads, the Pastel Ink Blue has retreated from the silver glass leaving light halos around all of the fritty bits.  The striking silver glass made a good start on its striking sequence, indicating to me that this colour might be a decent base for silver glass.

This colour separates with Opal Yellow and Tuxedo, and it causes separation reactions in Copper Green, and to a lesser extent, Opal Yellow and Peace. On top of Ivory, its edges are hazy and sort of indistinct.

Here are some fun beads with Pastel Ink Blue.