Test Results :: Merryweather

CiM Merryweather (CiM556) is a bright, medium, translucent blue. I say translucent rather than semi-opaque because the rods I had actually retained their translucency, which I really love but is definitely not true of all of the semi-opaque colours in the CiM line.

An example of a semi-opaque colour that seems to not want to be translucent after working, Electric Avenue is on the right here. You can see that Merryweather and Electric Avenue are quite similar in colour, but Merryweather has stayed more translucent.

Tardis is like Merryweather in that it also stays translucent, but is somewhat darker.

Merryweather does not change when you reduce it.

Silver is all kinds of crazy on top of Merryweather. Nothing about its reactions remind me of Tardis, which was basically inert with silver and very gentle with other colours. Silver on top of Merryweather turned a bizarre, mottled greenish colour which it retained when I reduced and encased it.

Silver glass develops colour nicely on top of Merryweather.

Merryweather separates Copper Green, Opal Yellow, and Peace.

Ivory develops a fuzzy brown line around it when used on top of Merryweather, and when Merrweather is used on top of Ivory, you can see a brownish reaction through the translucency of its colour.

Here are some fun beads with Merryweather.

Test Results :: Lapis

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 6 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 7 & 8 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace

CiM Lapis is hands-down the best blue-purple opaque colour I've yet used. It is interestingly reactive, vibrant, and relatively inexpensive (compared to other purples and indigos) to boot.

On the surface of Lapis, silver spreads out and balls up in tiny little bits, mostly. What doesn't break up turns an interesting turquoise colour. If you reduce and encase the silver, the mottled bluish, turquoisey green effect can cover the whole bead surface under the clear. This effect is also faintly shiny, like mother of pearl.

Because Lapis is reactive with silver, it rises up in light halos around silver glass. You can see the light halos around all of the fritty bits in this picture. You can see also that all of my TerraNova2 frit turned purple, which is stage one of striking for it. Had I cooled and reheated the bead a few more times I would have gotten more interesting colours. To me, this means that Lapis is potentially a pretty decent base colour for striking silver glass colours.

I do this silver glass test with every colour just to see the differences in how the frit behaves when I run the test the same way each time. Some colours seem to magically accelerate the striking of silver glass while others seem to inhibit it. Lapis seems like a good one, but not a great one.

Here, you can see that just like with silver glass, Lapis rises up in halos around Tuxedo, and Lapis separates very dramatically when used on top of Tuxedo.

Copper Green separates on top of Lapis, with the lighter more turquoise bits in the middle of dots and stringer lines and the outside lines looking sort of dark and dingy. On top of Copper Green, Lapis separates so that it has a dark line in the middle of stringer lines and dark pinpoints in the middle of dots.

When Opal Yellow is used on top of Lapis, the Lapis at the edges of the dots and stringer lines fades and looks a bit mottled.  Lapis separates very slightly on top of Opal Yellow.

Ivory separates and curdles on top of Lapis. Lapis separates on top of Ivory.

Like with Opal Yellow, Peace causes a light Lapis outer line to form around its edges. When Lapis is used on top of Peace, it bleeds and the Peace takes on a lavender appearance.

All of these beads contain Lapis: