Test Results :: Sapphire

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - Over Clear, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf, 5 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 6 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 7 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 8 - w/ Silver Glass Frit stringer (encased), 9 - w/ Tuxedo, 10 - w/ Copper Green, 11 - w/ Opal Yellow, 12 - w/ Ivory, 13 - w/ Peace

CiM Sapphire is much darker once it's in a bead than it is in the rod.  This is Sapphire's first trick -- as you will see, it's a fairly tricky colour.  It's a joy to work with though -- I was expecting Sapphire to be a boily colour, since Leaky Pen boils and so do a lot of the Effetre blues.  Not so with Sapphire.  I found that as long as I didn't park Sapphire in the flame that I got very little bubbling or scumming, and most of the scumming that did appear was not visible in the bead after annealing even though I could have sworn the same beads looked like hell going into the kiln.

Sapphire is a dark blue, slightly on the grey side, which makes it less vibrant than Effetre Ink Blue or Effetre Intense Blue.  Over clear, it is still fairly dark -- somewhat deeper in colour than Effetre Medium Blue.

Putting silver on top of Sapphire makes it even darker.  The bead on the left here looks almost black, with smudges and sprays of silver wandering over its surface. When this combination is reduced and encased, the Sapphire lightens back up so that you can see through it again and the silver takes on all kinds of attractive blue colour.  Pretty.

Sapphire is a brilliant base for silver glass, but doesn't do that fun thing with silver glass frit stringer that I was hoping for. My TerraNova2 frit looks awesome on top of Sapphire, and so does the reduced silver glass frit.

This one made me do a double-take. Why does Sapphire look like an orangey-brown colour on top of Copper Green? This is one of the weirdest things I've seen in a while.

Where I used Sapphire on top of Copper Green, in addition to the odd colour that the Sapphire turns, something funny also happens underneath. The Copper Green does not get its metallic patina, and separates into two different colours of turquoise.  On top of Sapphire, the Copper Green develops a turquoise outline and then the insides of the dots and stringer lines look faintly pinkish.

On top of Opal Yellow, Sapphire looks sort of purple, and the Opal Yellow doesn't seem to like being underneath it because it's gone all smeary and developed some pinkish fissures.  On top of Sapphire, Opal Yellow seems to lose its yellowness and take on some of the blue from the Sapphire.

On top of Ivory, Sapphire looks faintly greyish, with a purply colour being visible at the edges of the Sapphire lines and dots. On top of Sapphire, the Ivory thins out a little at the edges, but not that noticeably.

On top of Sapphire, Peace separates and looks sort of three-dimensional.  You can barely see the Sapphire on top of the Peace in the picture above because of my terrible photography, but there isn't much to report on there in terms of reactions, so it doesn't matter all that much.

I was sure that I made some fun beads with Sapphire, but now I can't figure out definitively which ones they might have been, so nothing to see here!  There are some great examples of beads that other people have made with Sapphire on the CiM Sapphire page.

Test Results :: Azure

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - Over Clear, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf, 5 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 6 - Over Silver Foil, 7 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 8 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 9 - w/ Silver Glass Frit stringer (encased), 10 & 11 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory and Peace

CiM Azure is a brilliant, saturated blue. Over Clear, it lightens up just enough so that you can see through it more easily without losing any of its richness. It seems bluer to me than any of the Aquas (until it's used in a thin layer, that is) and it is beautiful to work with. I didn't have any trouble with this colour boiling or scumming up at all.

Azure is not very exciting with silver, but it is pretty nice with sliver glass and has fascinating reactions with other colours. I'm not really sure if the reactions I encountered are common to all bright, yummy blue glass or if they are unique to Azure, but no doubt I will eventually find out.

On top of Azure, silver leaf sort of sits in wisps on the surface without seeming to do very much, but if the silver is subsequently reduced and encased, it takes on a strange dirty solidity that is a little puzzling. The colour of this odd reaction is silver, but interspersed with gold and pink. Silver Foil can be encased (without reducing it as I did with the leaf in the centre bead) with Azure without changing colour.

On top of Azure, my silver glass frit got some interesting results (although I realize these beads are hideous to look at.  I had a bad bead day when I made these, and they touched each other in the kiln and just about every other bad thing that could happen, did happen).

The bead on the left with TerraNova2 frit bloomed fairly nicely, but stayed in the purple ranges.  The reducing silver glass frit has acquired an interesting mosaic pattern when used on the surface of Azure, but when used as frit stringer over Azure and then encased, more or less disappears except for the odd bit of streakiness.

 

Tuxedo: You can't see Azure on top of Tuxedo, which I'd already predicted, but the anal retentive me couldn't let it go. Tuxedo does not exhibit any odd behaviour on top of Azure.

Copper Green: When Azure is used on top of Copper Green, it gets a bizarre double outline of Copper Green around it, the first layer being a light turquoise band surrounding the Azure, and the next layer being a greyish-pink patina. When Copper Green is used on top of Azure, there is no sign of the greyish-pink face of Copper Green, and the dots and stringer lines develop a slightly lighter outline. Because this effect in the Copper Green is so strong, it almost gives the feeling that two separate lines/sets of dots have been drawn on top of one another.

Opal Yellow: Opal Yellow floats up around Azure dots and stringer lines in a lighter yellow halo. On top of Azure, Opal Yellow separates in much the same way Copper Green does, only less dramatically.

Ivory: On top of Ivory, Azure turns a deep, brownish teal colour with a brown outline. It also seems to do something to the Ivory underneath it, because there are fine lines in the Ivory in my test bead that are emphasized by the way the reaction seems to create lighter paths through the Azure dots and lines. On top of Azure, Ivory develops a mottled brown outline.

Peace: This reaction is really cool. When you put Azure on top of Peace, the Peace floats up around it in a bright white halo. This is sort of similar to what happens with Opal Yellow, but with the Peace the reaction has more contrast, and the Azure, with its white outline, seems to float on top of the Peace base. On top of Azure, Peace exhibits the same outlining as I mentioned for Copper Green and Opal Yellow, almost as dramatically in its own way as the Copper Green on Azure. The Peace looks faintly translucent and blueish around the edges, with a more solid line/dot in the middle of the stringer lines/dots.

Here's a fun bead with Azure.

Test Results :: Rainforest

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 Rainforest, depending on how you use it, ranges from a medium teal semi-opaque to a dark green opaque with blue overtones and some really interesting behaviour.

I was talking to someone a few weeks ago about this new colour, and the words they said to me about it were, "I'm not going to order any Rainforest - it looks just like Mermaid, and I already have a lot of Mermaid."

Well, I guess this colour and Mermaid can look approximately the same hue of teal, depending  on how much the Rainforest has been struck, but that's really where the similarity ends.  Where Mermaid is stiff, pasty and streaky (and beautiful in its own way), Rainforest is soft and buttery, and because it is a semi-opaque, has a sort of inner glow to it. Rainforest also has much more interesting reactions with other colours than Mermaid does.

Reducing Rainforest results in a darker colour, and over-reducing it results in an unattractive dark blotchiness.

On top of Rainforest, silver leaf melted into the surface sort of disperses into tiny little droplets and more or less disappears from view.  When this non-reaction is reduced and encased, it looks like a dirty force field cloaking the Rainforest under the clear glass.

I didn't get great colour out of my TerraNova2 frit on top of Rainforest, but my reduced silver glass frit looks freaky, webby and yummy on top of it.

 

Tuxedo:  There is no obvious reaction between Tuxedo and Rainforest. On top of Rainforest, Tuxedo dots and lines stay nice and crisp. On top of Tuxedo, Rainforest is barely visible due to its semi-opacity.

Copper Green:  On top of Rainforest, Copper Green separates, with a darker turquoise line/dots coalescing in the centre of the stringer lines/dots. Underneath Copper Green, Rainforest webs a little, developing fine darker lines. When Rainforest is used on top of Copper Green, the Copper Green separates into light and dark turquoise again, with the lighter colour next to the Rainforest. Some odd, mottled, brownish 'smut' has also shown up on the light turquoise part of the separated Copper Green in this bead.

Opal Yellow: On top of Rainforest, Opal Yellow separates so that a fine, translucent line/dot is visible in the centre of the stringer lines/dots. The real weirdness happens when you put Rainforest on top of Opal Yellow. The Opal Yellow curdles, light yellow halos springing up around the Rainforest, and the Rainforest thins out and webs on top of it.

Ivory: Rainforest turns Ivory brown, but in a different, webby sort of way from a lot of other greens/turquoises. On top of Rainforest, the Ivory separates so that it has a fine translucent line/dot in the middle of dots/lines and the edges darken. The appearance of the Ivory over Rainforest is mottled and aged. On top of Ivory, Rainforest looks greener and browner, and it causes a frizzy brown webbing through the Ivory base glass.

Peace: The reaction between Peace and Rainforest is very subtle.  Peace separates on top of Rainforest, and when Rainforest is used on top of it, it curdles gently. This is similar to what happens between Rainforest and Opal Yellow, only much less dramatic.

In both of these beads the Rainforest has struck to a very deep green.  These are not very attractive beads, but that is not Rainforest's fault.