Messy testing - Jupiter Storm, Ocher and Sunset ltd run

There are 10 new Creation is Messy ltd run glass colours in the pipeline that will on sale sometime soon. You can check out a the CiM preview page for a sneaky-peek.

By far the most intriguing to me was Jupiter Storm. In rod form it looks like a pale grey beige but this finished goddess bead has highlights in palest caramel orange that have nothing to do with fuming from the silver leaf burnished over the top. This colour variation adds a lot of depth and interest to my little goddess bead. Jupiter Storm reacts strongly with fine silver leaf, the dark caramel patches on the torso have been created by burnishing on small pieces of silver leaf and then vapourising it  in the flame.

Ocher ltd run is a fabulous colour, something like Effetre Mustard 460 but much greener. It has a very cool 70's retro feel about it. Although there is a big reaction between Ocher and fine silver, the reaction is not so much a colour change as an earthy organic ashen effect on the surface of the glass - which is much cooler than that description makes it sound (see the effect here on right side of this bead).

Sunset ltd run is a lovely rich and bright coral orange that puts me in mind of ripe Persimmon. It reacts with silver leaf very strongly to give a dark caramel brown organic stain on the glass in the places where the silver has been vapourised away in the flame.

I wanted to test this trio of colours first as they jumped out at me as belonging together.  I immediately wanted to team them up with a lovely bright turquoise and decided to go with Smurfy. I reckon they look great together (see image below) and look very "Desert Sunset". It seems to me that there is much less of the dark reaction line between the Smurfy and the Sunset and Ocher than I would have expected to see from a similar colour selection from the Effetre palette.

Have a lovely day, Jolene xx

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CiM, Zim and silver....part II

The second in my series of blog posts for testing out CiM (Creation is Messy) glass and Zimmermann frit in combination with fine silver.

The beads on the left are Z861 iris yellow over a base of CiM Adobe ltd run and unique Chai 711793-3 (no frit, just silver foil then encased).  I have only wrapped one half of each Adobe bead with silver foil but rolled the whole bead in frit. The silver foil has reacted wonderfully with the Adobe where it touches the galss and has fumed the rest of the bead to a lovely toffee shade. I couldn't get The Z861 to do anything faux borroish in the slightest but do love how it looks on this bead.

 

This second combination of glass looks wonderful together. I have used a based of unique Butter Pecan 511703-5, silver foil then Z077 dark moss green frit. The focal is only half wrapped in silver to show the subtle fuming effects  on the base glass. I think that the moss green frit looks two tone and gemlike over this wonderful neutral base. The green spacers I have added to this set are Z077 over Sherwood which is a versatile and slightly striated medium green that I use an awful lot for vines and leaves and seaweed.

Next up is Unique Chai (as seen encased in my first set) with Z711 Silver Amethyst. This pull of unique Chai reminds me very much of Desert Pink, a creamy pale pink which is very reactive with silver (but it is about 1/2 the price of Desert Pink in the UK right now). This set of beads turned out so much darker than I thought it would, the Z711 has melted and spread out wonderfully but the colour is so dense that there is only the slightest hint of deep amethyst at all to these beads. I am definitely putting Z711 on my shortlist of frits to try out with some diluting techniques such as making fritty twistie.

There are two kinds of base glass in this set, Unique Adamantium 511874-1 and Smurfy which is a fabulous turquoise. The larger rounds are 874-1 with silver foil and Z092 turquoise frit. As you may remember from my first CiM/Zim post, I am a little bit of a smitten kitten with Adamantium glass and how it reacts with silver and this unique pull of this glass is no exception. Zimmermann Z092 opaque turquoise frit is a very similar but more saturated shade and tone to Smurfy and I have teamed them up together to make subtle fritty spacers.

My last set to show today is another with CiM Smurfy, this time in combination with Z862 extra light beige. I find Smurfy to be slightly less reactive with Effetre CoE 104 ivory than other soda lime turquoise glass so thought it would be a good choice to try out with this pale furnace glass frit. I made three beads wrapped with silver foil and three without. The larger beads with silver show a much darker and pronounced reaction line with the Smurfy but the melted frit is has remained dense and pale in colour as it has spread  and doesn't appear to have been silver fumed. The smaller beads are made with Smurfy and Z862 without any silver and the reaction line is a pale grey.



Jolene x
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Kiss me with silver coz I feel blue

One of my favorite things to do is to kiss silver to glass and make shards. I have had a crush on Grumpy Bear silver infused shards for quite a while, with their little droplets of shiny beaded silver but I also love Chalcedony shards made this way for their veil like transparency and webbed organic silver reaction. It occurs to me that it would be fun to put some other CiM blues through their paces and so...let the messy testing begin!

This is the paddle pic for Chalcedony from CiM



My scrummy pic of silver kissed Chalecedony shards, although taken indoors; it shows the soft translucency and organic pattering given to the glass by the fine silver infusion.



Here are my Chalcedony shard test beads. The subtle veiled effect is preserved after application and there is very little further organic reactions created by further heating of the silvered Chalcedony shards.



This is the paddle pic for Grumpy Bear from CiM



This pic of silver kissed Grumpybear shards has been taken under artificial light giving a slightly turquoise hue to this glasswork which is not true to life.



My Grumpybear test beads are by far my favorite of the silvered shard test beads, with a secondary organic effect of brown striations appearing during the application process.



This is the paddle pic for Smurfy from CiM



Here is a snap of my Smurfy shards - twinkling with droplets of silver. There is less reaction between the silver infusion and turquoise base than I would have anticipated and have found when creating silvered turquoise shards from various shade of Effetre glass. I think these shards are simply beautiful.



And here are my Smurfy test beads. As you can see, the silver remains in droplets on the surface of the applied shards, with a very small amount of secondary reactions during the application process. On one of my there is a small amount of a terracotta reduction colour where I have placed the shard to the bead surface in a slight reduction flame.



This is the paddle pic for Cornflower from CiM



These shards have had a double layer of silver and have been blown thicker than the other test shards that I have made. You can see the intense reaction from the Cornflower with the heavy silver infusion in lush green/grey organic patterns and striations. It a wonderful quirk of the making by hand process that I stumbled across this beautiful reaction and for future batches I would be tempted to use fine silver foil as opposed to fine silver leaf.



The deep and intense looking Cornflower blue works so well as shards. The initial organic reaction created in the blowing process is preserved on the shard surface during the application process. All in all these are very pleasing shards to work with.



Some notes on my test bead base colours:

CiM Clear: Much better than Vetro clear and Effetre 004, with respect to scumming and bubbles, not as good as the latest batches of Effetre 006. To be fair this is the first rod of CiM Clear I have ever used and the rd did have some surface scratches which will have added to the degree of scumming I experienced.

Reichenbach Antique Clear: This glass is a personal favorite of mine and my current "go to" for encasing, scum free, smooth to melt, relatively stiff. A very light green transparent which gives depth and a slightly victoriana look to my beads.

CiM Sapphire: Scums/boils easily in a hotish flame, though worked cool it behaves much better. Personally I like a few tiny bubbles in my beads to add interest and sparkle so working with this exceptionally beautiful shade of blue transparent holds no worries for me. Not a colour I would use for making ribbon twistie as stretched out tiny bubbles can make twistie very shocky.

CiM Cirrus: Interestingly this colour creates a beautiful green hue to my flame. An added element of nice when working with this glass. I found it a tiny bit shocky but once the end f the rod was hot, melted smoothly. As with CiM clear, it is the first time I have used this glass and so have much to learn about its striking properties.

CiM Split Pea: I love the deep striations that naturally occur when working with this relatively new addition to the CiM colour pallet. A softish glass, well behaved and easy to work with.

CiM Ming: Wow! such a beautiful glass. A little shocky at first but then I do tend to work hot. You may be able to see that Ming and Chalcedony are very similar in shade once the Ming has been struck to opaque.