Messy Testing - Fiddlehead, Iguana, Lichen

Last week I grabbed some studio time and had a play about with three of the newest limited run opaques. Pale grey green Lichen, deep rich green Fiddlehead and a lovely vivid mid green opaque called Iguana.

I did a quick test bead showing how these colours looked etched in my last messy Testing post on Aloe Juice. They all look lovely with matt finish and so I decided to team up these greens with Reichenbach Antique clear which one of my "go to" glasses for etched beads.

Above is a pic of my half and half nuggets before etching.

Lichen is beautiful, a very pale grey green pastel shade. It works up much lighter than in the CiM paddle picture, somewhat similar in tone to Dirty Martini.

Filddlehead is the darkest in the new opaque green trio. It is rich with a lot of striation which I really like, it is useful glass characteristic for landscapes, organic beads and in vine canes for floral designs.

Iguana is my favourite of the three, both in the glossy finish and etched finish. It's such a bright and happy shade without that acidic tone that Effetre light grass green seems to have.

The picture above shows how the nuggets beads came out after a being acid etched. The striations in the Fiddlehead beads look lovely and Lichen looks almost cloud-like grey.




Last up, here are a set  of beads made with Iguana, Ink blue and Peace with a touch of Effetre light grass green used in the heart decorated focal. Iguana and Ink blue work beautifully together. I've used Iguana to create tiny little dots on many of the beads in this set, they are crisp and do not bleed when melted flat like you often see with other bright green glasses as you can see in heart focal above made with Effetre light grass green.



Jolene x

Messy Testing - More on Ink Blot and Indigo

Yesterdays post didn't show anything near just how beautiful Ink Blot ltd run and Indigo ltd run really are so I spent some quality playtime in the studio yesterday putting these two super saturated transparent colours through their paces as tiny dots and white cored stringer. In addition to the two CiM colours I have also used CiM Peace and 006 Clear.

The gorgeous rich blue shade in these beads is Indigo, I have used it to make striped core and a petal beads and tiny stacked dot beads. It remains vibrant even when heavily diluted using these layering techniques and the edges of the dots are crisp and clean over white.

The subtle soft grey lilac in these beads is the Ink Blot. It makes a very pretty petal cane over white and it makes a wonderful compliment to Indigo. the little Ink Blot spacers look much darker than in the places where I have used it to make stripes and petals. This may be because I have used it directly over clear rather than over white. Another interesting thing about Ink Blot is that it appears to give a subtle reaction line when dotted directly over a base of Peace.

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Have a lovely weekend, Jolene x

Not everything in life is black and white...

I've been planning to do some black and white comparison testing for ages. I wanted to put several different black CoE 104 glass rods through their paces in a diluted form by drawing them out over CiM Peace as twistie cane. The colours I am comparing in this post are:

• CiM Charcoal
• Vetrofond Black 064
• CiM Hades
• Effetre Black 064
• CiM Tuxedo

I made a simple striped twistie cane, an encased twistie cane and a ribbon style cane with each of these black glasses and CiM Peace. The beads below show the simple striped twistie over CiM Journey ltd run (which is a stiff transparent glass).

1. The bead on the left was made with the CiM Charcoal twistie. The black in this twistie has crept towards the centre on the cane forming a thick black line along the centre with short narrow black spokes on either side like a tyre tread print.
2. The second is Vetrofond Black 064, this glass has seemed to react with the CiM Peace base giving extra fine stripes between the "real" ones. This glass has appeared to dilute down to a darkish grey.
3. Third up  up is CiM Hades, the behaviour this cane here is similar to the Charcoal one but the Hades has spread width ways as well giving the appearance of  a thick black line along the centre of the cane with short wide black spokes on either side.This effect looks "smokier" than the Charcoal one.
4. The fourth bead is made with  Effetre Black 064, this glass has diluted down to a vibrant purplish blackcurrant colour. As with the Vetrofond there has been a reaction with the Peace base to give the appearance of extra stripes.
5. Lastly my CiM Tuxedo twistie over Journey, this cane has melted flat to give similar tyre track effect to the other CiM blacks but it has a slight deep purple cast to it.

These next beads show my encased striped twistie over CiM African Grey ltd run, a lovely rich muted grey which is a fairly hard to find now. I've used Effetre 006 clear in my twistie canes.

1. The first bead here has been made with an encased CiM Charcoal cane which has inhibited the glass's natural tendency to spread. The diluted Charcoal here has remained true black looking.
2. The second is Vetrofond Black 064, the encasing has stopped the spreading and illusion of extra lines shown with the unencased cane. The stripes on this bead look deep a blue/grey.
3. Next up is CiM Hades, as with Charcoal, the spreading tendency has been inhibited and the stripes still look very black.
4. The fourth bead is made with  Effetre Black 064, as expected, no additional reaction lines this time and an obviously blackcurrant/purplish colour.
5. Fifth, CiM Tuxedo twistie over Journey, again no spreading and the diluted glass also appears to remain relatively black with a very slight purplish cast. 

As far as encased twistie cane with fine stripes goes, there appears to be only a very slight difference in intensity and hue between the three CiM glass colours I have tested. If I was splitting hairs I would say that Tuxedo appeared darkest but Hades appeared to stay most black.

This last picture shows beads made with ribbon twistie over a small core of CiM Peace. Each bead was then encased with Effetre 006 clear glass. This form of twistie shows each glass in its most diluted form as cane.

 

1. The first is CiM Charcoal which has an ethereal smokey quality to it. The colour has remained quite black but become quite transparent.
2. The second is Vetrofond Black 064 which now has a transparent and wispy blue grey hue
3. Next up is CiM Hades, very black looking and appearing to be fairly dense
4. The fourth bead is made with  Effetre Black 064, distinctly different in colour from all of my other test beads, it is fairly translucent and again blackcurrant looking. 
5. Last up is CiM Tuxedo ribbon twistie over Peace. In the flesh this twistie is noticeably more translucent that the Hades bracelet bead but that has not proven very easy to capture in my picture.

In conclusion:

Effetre and Vetrofond black have a fun reaction over Peace.

Neither Effetre or Vetrofond black hold their black colour well in dilute form.

All three of these CiM blacks are spreaders in dilute form.

For encased twistie with fine black stripes head for Tuxedo as on balance it is the least expensive and most readily available of the three CiM glasses tested.

Charcoal, Effetre black and Vetrofond black make cool looking wispy ribbon twistie.

In all of these  pictures CiM Tuxedo is darkest looking but is not the truest black hue. CiM Hades holds its black tone the best in dilute form.

Jolene x

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Making a simple two colour twistie cane

A quick guide to how I make a simple two tone twistie using a mandrel and 104 glass punty to pull the twistie cane out. First heat up an uncoated mandrel directly in your torch flame.

Next wrap 1 to 2 cm of your bare mandrel with small wraps of your base colour - in this case I am using CiM Peace which I find much stiffer in relation to Effetre white and it is my go to white for twistie making.

Wrap a second layer of glass over your foundation layer. Some people build their twistie gather extending out from the last few mm of an uncoated mandrel and have the majority of the gather off mandrel but I prefer to use the mandrel for stability through the entire core of my gather.

Keep on building up the layers until you have a gather size that you are comfortable with. Start small and build larger gathers as you confidence grows.

Next marver your gather smooth which will make it easier to judge where to add your stripes of accent glass and will make the gather pull out evenly.

Keep your gather warm behind the flame and swipe on generous lines of your top stripe colour. In this tutorial I am using Reichenbach Dense Black which tends to stay crisp and dense in tone when stretched diluted. Avoid Reichenbach Dense Black if you are looking for organic spreading and webbing from your twistie - use fine lines (added with stringer rather than a full rod) of CiM Hades or Effetre intense black instead.

I like to add 4 or 5 stripes of the accent glass over my base colour to give the illusion of a really tight twist.

Keep you gather warm behind the flame and prepare a chunky maria of CoE 104 clear glass for your punty. It wasn't possible to get a photo of this part of the process as I had both hands full!

Some people like to use a second mandrel, aluminium chopsticks or even a rod of boro glass as their punty - all of these work well and the choice what kind of handle to use to help you pull down your gather is entirely up to you. I use 104 clear as I use all of the tail ends of my twistie canes to make Amoeba beads for Beads of Courage UK (tutorial for that tomorrow).

Attach your CoE 104 maria (second mandrel/chopsticks/boro rod) to your gather and heat until the stripes are well melted in and the whole mass is fluid and glowing to the core.

Edit to add: aim all of the heat at at the gather and not the maria, especially on the bushy flame of a HH torch. If you heat the soft punty rod that will pull out instead of the gather which is why lot's of people would go for chopsticks or a mandrel to punty up.

Remove the whole gather from the flame and begin to slowly twist both gather mandrel and punty whist pulling the two further apart very slowly. As you pull your cane you will see and feel the twisted cane "set". At this point you can stop twisting the punty and twist the mandrel only, twisting it faster and pulling harder to get a long length of even straight twistie cane.

Place the twistie on a heat proof surface to cool and cut the mandrel and punty from your twistie with rod nippers. Leave the maria ends to cool and dunk the mandrel in a water jar to cool it. You can always repunty the remainder of a gather and go for a second pull if your gather is too large for your arm span once reduced.



Jolene x

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Slytherin - Rockin' for twistie

Just spent a productive hour in my shed pulling twistie from Slytherin, one of the newest CoE 104 glass colours to hit the U.K from CiM.

This is the paddle pic for Slytherin from CiM - divine looking isn't it!



The intensity of this transparent colour makes the rods look virtually opaque not what I was expecting at all. It is a very stiff glass, but does not pit, spark or boil even in a very hot flame.

So I pulled a few variations of twistie in combination with CiM Peace (from right to left) encased striped twistie, striped twistie, tightly twisted ribbon cane with a thin partial encasement of Slytherin and lastly loose ribbon cane with a thick partial encasement of Slytherin.



The dense pigmentation in this glass lends itself well to creating encased striped twistie (far left below) - perfect for complex and subtle vine work on florals maybe. The striped twistie without encasement gave me a surprising result when I came to make my test beads - a thin reaction line on the Peace, midway between the main stripes of Slytherin (second from left below).





Of the ribbon cane twistie I much prefer the lightly encased version (above center) which again shows a reaction line on the Peace. The loosely twisted ribbon when used in my encased test beads shows again just how intense this colour is (abovefar left).



My conclusion......A little of this glass goes a very long way.

Jolene