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 :: Dark Periwinkle

Effetre Dark Periwinkle (EFF222) is a medium indigo opaque colour that is very soft.

Reducing Dark Periwinkle doesn't alter its colour.

Like it's lighter cousin Periwinkle, Dark Periwinkle can change to a greenish version of itself when silver is added to its surface. Reducing and encasing silver leaf on top of Dark Periwinkle was unexpectedly nice. Because the visible Dark periwinkle between the lacy silver bits fumes a deeper green-blue colour but doesn't do it evenly, there's a lot of pretty variation in the colour.

This colour is an average base for silver glass. My reducing silver glass looks pretty on top of its blueness, with the purplishness of the Dark Periwinkle countering the greenishness of the silver glass very nicely. In the rightmost bead, I got a decent starting strike to my TerraNova2 frit, and I like the contrast of its deep burgundy with the Dark Periwinkle. With a little more work, the colours here probably could have been beautiful :)

Dark Periwinkle is not a very reactive colour. Here, you can see it separating on tp of Copper Green. In the rightmost bead, it rises up in gentle halos around Tuxedo and Copper Green stringer dots and lines. Ivory and Peace separate slightly on top of it.

Here are some beads made with Dark Periwinkle:

Test Results :: Intense Blue

Effetre Intense Blue is a gorgeous dark blue transparent. It has a lot of punch when it is used in thick layers, but thins out colour-wise considerably when used thinly on top of other colours. That said, it is a lot bluer on top of white than most of the other transparent 104 blues because it starts out so much darker.

Here you can see how beautifully dark and rich this blue is. It doesn't change when you reduce it.

Intense Blue and Silver don't have much of a reaction. In the bead on the left, you can see that silver leaf formed a crust on top of Intense Blue, and then you can see in the bead on the right that when that 'crust' is reduced and encased, it mellows out into a greyish blue coating.

Neither of these beads show much of interest with regard to silver glass, although Intense Blue makes a pretty, inoffensive base colour for reducing silver glass frit.

Intense Blue lightens up considerably when you use it in thin layers over other colours, but still maintains its essential blueness. You really need a blue this intense if you are going to try to use it over white to make flower petals. But if you're making blue flowers, you'll probably want to use a light blue or lavender base glass with this colour to get deeper colours.

Intense Blue is not very reactive, and apart from some separation in Copper Green when it is used over top of this colour (and even fainter separation in Opal Yellow and Ivory), there is not much to report here.

I didn't make much with this colour yet, but here's a simple little earring pair.