More on CiM 795: Adobe Ltd Run - 2nd Batch

Just a couple more quickies with the 2nd batch Adobe from CiM - gosh - I hope they decide to convert this to a regular edition colour.

First pic, Adobe 2 on Effetre Dark Sky Blue.

Second pic - Adobe 2 on EDP. Way cool!

CiM 795: Adobe Ltd Run - 2nd Batch

Holy snake snot! This colour does some crazy stuff on Ivory.

I liked this colour when it first came out - it's a nice tanned flesh colour - and similar to Ginger, but quite a bit darker.


But put it with ivory and you get some crazy stuff happen'!

From the bottom in this pic, the rod of glass, a mandrel with a solid Adobe 2, and a bead with an Adobe 2 base, ivory dots with Adobe 2 dots on top. Look at how they have crawled and bled and deformed!

On the 2nd mandrel is an ivory bicone. Thin trails of Adobe 2 were laid down, heated and raked. Check out how th ivory has a crazed look between the Adobe 2 - and how it has separated. Less of the really dark reaction than on the smaller bead, but you can see a little of it down near the bottom of the bead.

I'd say this bears further investigation!

CiM 701-3: Ginger Unique 3

This batch of unique Ginger is not Ginger. It doesn't look like Ginger, and it doesn't magically transform itself into Ginger by heating.

It's grey. It is, in fact, light grey.

The unworked rods look grey - Unique 3 on the left, Original on the right.

And, after heating, Unique at the bottom, Original on top.
Bead on the right is Unique 3, bead on the left is half and half.
Two beads of Unique 3 on the left, and one with turquoise dots on the right.
If you are looking for a pale grey - CiM 701-3 Ginger Unique is your glass. It's a "mice" shade of grey. ;-)

Eff 420 Coral Variants: Persimmon and La Mesa Special

Sigh. Yet another variation on coral in varying shades of orange. Cuz the 97 varieties we have just aren't enough.

Yeah - what do I know? I apologize - I'm sure that if getting consistent batches of 420 Coral was easy - they'd just do it.

Anyhoo - two more variations on the Coral colour from Effetre. Persimmon, on the left, and La Mesa Special on the right. The unworked rods look virtually identical - so label this stuff if you buy both, otherwise, you'll never sort it out again.


This is the Persimmon - I've left the marker bead showing so that I am sure of which picture is which. (The coloured wrap of glass - the marker bead - is how I confirm which is what when I take it out of the kiln. My notes say - Periwinkle marker was Persimmon. etc. )

The solid bead is self coloured - and slightly streaky, the one with dots has dots of turquoise and clear, and is a little more streaky.
This is the La Mesa Special. Bead on left has dots of turquoise, and the solid bead on the right is quite streaky.
Head to head - the La Mesa on the top and the Persimmon on the bottom, the La Mesa is streakier, and a little less vibrant in colour. The difference in more subtle in real life. I think if you had a bowl full of beads made of both of these, you'd have your work cut out for you if you wanted to sort them out.

You can see that both variations react with the turquoise.


Both are a very rich pinky-orange, or orangey pink - like the colour of uncooked salmon. The finished beads are a little more orange than the unworked rods.

Neither is a bad colour. If you are doing "painted desert" beads - choose the streakier La Mesa - if you want more of a bright, happy colour - pick the Persimmon.

Dragon Eyes

I've been making these "Dragon Eyes" for a while now, and been having some success with using the Double Helix glasses - so I thought I'd share with you which glass is which.


The iris is Cyan/Red dichro, on a black base. Encased in Lauscha clear. The lids are Double Helix Khaos, heated clear hot and laid down as one big gather, with an edge laid down just melting as I go. (See the colour difference?) The dots on the lids are Nyx, lightly reduced.



This one - the iris is silver dichro on clear, laid down over black. The lids are Khaos - the top lid was snot heated (heat the snot out of it = heat it clear hot). The bottom lid was worked much cooler. The dots are Clio, not reduced.


This one started with a twisty of Double Helix Khaos, Ehko and Nyx, reduced, and encased and pulled.

The iris is the above twisty, over white. The lids are formed of clear, with trails of Clio laid down, and melted until they spread (quite a challenge to do that and not deform the shape, I might add!). The Clio was reduced.

Reactions: Cim Soylent and Effetre EDP

Now this is cool! There are only two colours of glass on this bead - Effetre 254 / Purple / Orchid / Evil Purple / Evil Devitrifying Purple / EDP - ok - that really is only one colour with many names plus CiM Soylent.

Soylent is a streaky colour anyway - but when you put it with EDP - look at what happens!

Both the Soylent and the EDP separate, and in the case of the dots of the EDP on the Soylent - they come out a markedly different shade of purple.

Here's another shot.


They are just reacting with each other and doing cool things all over the place! How much fun is that?

Double Helix: Helios

Much as I am a big fan of Double Helix - er - this colour got a lot of pre-release hype and, uh, well, quite frankly - it seems to be much ado about nothing.

Oh - it looks promising enough when you are working it - goes a nice deep colour and all metallicy - but when it comes out of the kiln - Poof! Where did all that colour and metal go?

The two top beads on the left appeared to strike to a rich yellow or orange - and do appear a little darker than the rod - but that might be just because they are thicker.

The bead at the bottom of the pic was reduced, and developed a haze, but comes out with most of the reduction gone.

Here is that same bead again, from another side. Just a hint of the reduction left.
So I tried again. Sometimes these silver glasses work well on black. So - Helios, on black, reduced (using a Dragon's Breath flame - big bushy flame, no oxy at all)

Harumph. You'll have to take my word for it that there is some on there - cuz you can't see it.

So I tried a third day, and reduced the heck out of it - this was solid silver colour when it went into the kiln.


Double Helix describes this colour as "a golden-yellow citrine, jewel tone super luster." I'll concede the citrine description, and lustre - but argue the super. And if you look at the sample they have - it's like a mirror.

Maybe I should try a different kiln to anneal it. I'm not aware that mine has reduction-eating super-powers though.

Anyway - it's a nice enough colour - and a necklace of beads made with this and combined with gemstones would look awesome - say - smokey topaz. But it does seem to fall short of the Valentine's Day hype that it got.

CiM 915-1 Pink Champagne Unique

This is a unique batch of CiM Pink Champagne. In referring back to my own blog posts - this unique batch appears to resemble CiM 652 Count von Count. So much so - that I question if I didn't get the labeling wrong in that post. But no - in checking the CiM website, they say that Pink Champagne colour-shifts between Pink and Pink-Brown.

Pink Champagne-1 appears blue in fluorescent lighting, and pink in incandescent lighting, much like Effetre Light and Dark Lavender, and like the commercially-made beads in the colour usually referred to as Alexandrite.

Here we have the rods in the background, and Pink Champagne-1 over white, and self coloured.

Same beads - incandescent lighting. (A regular light bulb).

PC-1 on the left, and CiM Appletini on the right, over white - fluorescent lighting.
And same bead again, under a regular light bulb.
This is the sort of thing that has you checking your notes over and over.

But yeah - the rods are labeled Pink Champagne. So the Champagne has turned into the Count. Now you know why the quote goes, "I never drink ... wine." ;-)

Something Blue: CiM Blues and Clio

Just doing a little experimenting with various shades of CiM blues - Ming, Chalcedony, and Halong Bay, and Effetre Dark Aqua with Double Helix Clio.












First up, for a reference point, CiM Ming - which is a gosh-darn gorgeous colour, as I have mentioned before.



This is Ming, with Clio on top, reduced. You see some of the reddishness of the Clio shining thru, and the Ming is a distinctly different colour, presumably from the fuming.

This is Ming, with Clio over wrap as above, but melted in, and not reduced. The Ming has stayed the same colour, the Clio appears black, but with some interesting separation effects.


Next up the two beads on the left are Chalcedony, and the two on the right are Halong Bay. The Clio overwrap has been reduced. The base beads have become somewhat greener with the yellow fuming effect of the reduced Clio.

Just for reference - this is Chalcedony.


And - finally - this is Effetre Dark Aqua with Clio. No apparent colour change in the Dark Aqua from fuming.

For reference, this is Effetre Dark Aqua.


Interesting that the blues go more greenish when incidentally fumed by reducing the silver glass Clio.

Even more interesting that the Dark Aqua does not.

Video - Sculptural Butterfly

Here's a very good video of making a butterfly sculpture in soft glass. The technique is very nice and makes it look easy.



You may be surprised that the artist can leave the wings out of the flame and doesn't keep them warm. One of the keys to working this way is that you plan your work so that you can finish an area and let it cool, and NOT go back in and re-heat it. Once it cools down, you never go back.

Notice that at the head of the butterfly - the artist leaves a skinny bit of glass sticking out? Makes it look like a beak - so the initial stages look more like hummingbird. Then the artist reheats this to add the antennae. This is the other key to working this way. Any place that you need to go back to, you need to leave a projection of thin glass, thin enough to heat without shocking. Think of the difference between heating a stringer and a rod of glass. The stringer is not going to shock when you put it in the flame, because it is thin.

I only wish this video had been shot through a filter so you could see better through the flame. But it is still very worth watching.

Blue Aventurine Ribbon

Got my hands on some Blue Aventurine Ribbon. Aventurine is Goldstone by any other name, but in the case of the blue stuff, calling it goldstone seems a trifle confusing.

I really like the ribbon, as it is very easy to work. As I used the entire piece in this bead - I can't show you want it looks like before being worked, but it is thin and flat and wide. The strips are about 1-2 mm thick (I think, from memory), and about 5-7 mm wide (about a 0.25 inches). I use them pretty much the same as a strip of dichro.

Make a base bead first, then, working further out in the flame for less heat, heat the end of the strip gently - and stick it the the bead. Then, heating the underside of the strip just to the point where it starts to soften, lay it down around the bead, pushing it down, so that it stays nice and thick. If you want less dramatic results, pull it out and stretch it a bit more for less intense effect.

I then encase it to emphasize the sparkle. I don't believe it needs to be encased, I just like the look.

I think that this blue version is sparklier than the traditional goldstone version I tried awhile back.

You can use it as an accent, or as a really dramatic background for say, encased flowers. Or just like this, on it's own, and "let the glass speak for itself."

;-)

This bead is about 30 mm long, fyi. In case you were thinking it was just a little spacer. In my case, the glass doesn't speak for itself so much as it shouts "Oy, over here. Pay attention monkey boy or I'll box your ears."

CiM 497: Appletini

But wait - there's more! The delish new colours just keep coming! This pale green transparent is CiM Appletini!


The bead on the left is over white, and the two on the right are solid, self-coloured.
And this little guy got reduced, which, as you can see, did absolutely nothing to change him.
Another keeper, I think!

CiM says that they were trying for "Bottle Green" - evoking the green of old glass bottles. If not an exact match - it seems to have the right feel for that look. I wonder what it looks like etched?

More observations on CiM Rainforest, Azure and Atlantis.

Here's a head to head comparison of these three, great, new colours from CiM.

From the left, we have Azure, Atlantis, and Rainforest - all deeply encased.

Here you can see Electric Avenue (top) next to Atlantis. The Atlantis is a little greener and a little denser.

And here we see Rainforest - posed with some Swarovski crystals in Palace Green Opal. The centre bead - with is Rainforest over white, is a pretty good match for this colour. The self-coloured bead on the right, however, shows quite different.


Anyway you slice it - three fabulous new colours!

CiM 500: Azure

CiM Azure - a deep, dark aqua. Does the world really need another dark aqua? U becha. This colour is so scrumptious - yeah - there is always room for pie and dark aqua!

Azure is a darker shade that CiM Pulsar - shown here together - the Pulsar is the collection of rods at the top, and the Azure is below.

And, just for reference, this is Azure next to CiM Electric Avenue.
Here we have, from left to right, over clear, over white, and two solid beads. Azure is a dense colour - the Azure over clear is closer to the colour of the unworked rod, while the two self-coloured beads are a little darker.
This is Azure on Ivory. Note the fairly strong reaction with the ivory, and the shift to green. There is also some subtle streakiness that shows against the ivory in the dots.
This little self-coloured spacer was reduced, which brought up a rainbow sheen. Unfortunately, it has since cracked, but I suspect that had to do with letting it get too cool while messing around reducing it.

Wow - third fabulous colour in a row! The new three from CiM, Azure, Atlantis, and Rainforest, are totally yummy.

CiM 598: Atlantis

Ha - if you thought I was excited about yesterday's new colour (CiM Rainforest) - wait till you see this one!

This is CiM Atlantis, a translucent dark aqua/teal. I wouldn't actually have called it a teal - except when I put it next to a true aqua - like CiM Pulsar or Effetre Dark Aqua, it is slightly more green. It is a great ocean colour! I have posed it here with some Swarovski crystals in the colours Caribbean Blue Opal - which is is a very good colour match with.

All three of these are solid colour, the smaller one on the left was made last and probably got these least amount of heating and cooling - it is darker, and more translucent. This is a very dark translucent colour - not like CiM Cirrus - which takes quite a bit of build up to make it opaque - this can easily function as an opaque.

On the left, over white. On the right - over clear. Kind of a cool streaky pattern going on there.
This is on ivory - where it has had an extreme reaction - forming frothy bubbley patterns.
This is a solid coloured bead - reduced. It is very dark, and has the barest hint of reddish splotches from the copper as it was reduced. They are hard to see in person, and did not want to show up on camera.
Definitely a keeper!