Effetre 705 Okey Dokey Artichokey

Like the call and response of "See you later, alligator" and "In a while, Crocodile" - I find that now, every time someone says "Okey dokey" - I want to add - "Artichokey." Sad, yes - I know. ;-)

This was another surprising colour - as this came out quite different from the rod. And - as a matter of fact - it was so shocky that I was quite discouraged. I tossed the whole lot in the kiln - and annealed it. I will have to try it again and see if that has helped.









I did notice that the annealed rods came out substantially greener and more like the colour of the beads. The annealed rod is the top rod in this picture.











There is little streakiness - and now that I've annealed the rods - I can perhaps play with this a bit more.


















The colour itself is very nice - a nice blue green - organic without bordering on ugly.

I'll keep you posted on the post-annealed workability of this one!

Effetre 706 - Pinkie Winkie

New colour from Effetre - actually - one of a series of new "streaky" colours. Very exciting! This is Pinkie Winkie - and my understanding is that it is a rose pink layered over periwinkle. Looking at the end of the rod - you can, in fact, see layers - although not as bright a blue as you would expect from a periwinkle core.

As such - I was expecting big swirls of pink and blue - but the end result is more subtle than that.





In fact - with these little wound spacers - they pretty much just show as pink - not much blue at all.

















This larger basic bead - 19 mm diameter - shows a lot more streakiness.


















Now this bead shows a lot more streakiness - and a hint of another colour - which is actually a contaminant. When I got to this point - I started having troubles with shocking - and the gather kept popping of the end - and at one point - picked up a piece of glass from the bench.

But the pink and blue are definitely there.









So, in the spirit of pink - I tried a heart. At no point while working this glass could I see any semblance of the blue - all that emerged when I took the beads out of the kiln.

This heart turned out rather nice - I'm not a heart person - but this one is quite likeable.

This is a really pretty pink - with a blush of blue to it. Some of the rods - the thicker ones - are VERY shocky - so much so - that I suggest tossing them all in the kiln and pre-annealing them.

Because the blue is in the core - I think that to get the blue to show the most - you need to heat the glass a lot and get it molten and moving and mess it about, mashing and whatever. If you just wind off neat little spacers - you may miss the best part!

Bullseye 1717 Copper Green Lustre - or Oops I did it again

Ha - this is what I get for not checking a colour chart first. This would be another Goddess Oops. I should call this blog "Making Mistakes So That You Don't Have To."

This was another foray into using Bullseye for sculptural forms - for it's quality of being stiffer. The glass is Copper Green Lustre - and I know what the lustres do. The rod was a dark, transparent green. What I didn't expect was that it was going to go opaque. You'd have think that the name "Copper Green" might have clued me in!

Now the colour is not actually unattractive - if you think of it as, say, a Verdigris Copper, or a Sage. The bronze lustre that it can develop is very nice. (Rightmost bead on the mandrel of spacers - first photo.)

However, when I pulled this voluptuous testament to fertility out of the kiln - my first thought was "Green Army Goddess." Khaki. The Elder Goddess as envisioned by Lovecraft.

Not really what I had in mind. And most of the reduction unreduced in the kiln - leaving just hints of it.

(sigh)

Effetre 703 Mud Slide

Well - this is another veddy interesting colour. Mud Slide appears to strike, in a very controllable way, and does not kiln strike - allowing for gobs of control.

On the right (or the centre bead from the first pic) you see a pale, slightly pinkish- brown bead. This went into the kiln without any reheating or striking, and retained it's pale colour.

This warm brown bead, on the left, was struck with a reducing flame, and has gone a much warmer, hot chocolate sort of colour.




These last two photos are two different sides of the same bead, and show that you can selectively strike one side of the bead and leave the other side unaffected.


The bead struck with the reduction flame struck much faster, btw.


This colour looks very interesting for sculptural applications. Hmmmm.

Effetre 285 Sandstone

Sandstone. Was this an attempt to recreate the fabled "Curdled Ivory?" I don't know.

This is, in fact, a little darker and browner than the Effetre Ivories - and browner too than the Vetro Dark Ivory. Given that I luuuv ivory - I'm happy enough to have a fifth shade in that colour set - although I can appreciate that some folks may not see a point to it. It is a warmer, streakier colour.

And - you can see from the turquoise dots - it also shares the ivory/turquoise copper/sulfur reaction.

Effetre 441 Dark Matter

Well - this is an interesting one. Dark and mysterious - like Dark Matter. (Incidentally - if you want to know where all the missing dark matter in the universe is - check on the surface of my car - I'm pretty sure a significant portion is there. ;-) )

To start with - this was another rod that was too dark shocky to work - like the Spanish Leather. Fed up with that - I stuck the end in the kiln to pre-warm it while I made another bead. This was successful - but I hate doing that because it makes so much of the rod so hot that you can only hang onto the end, and if you forget and leave it too long - hoo boy! Inevitably - I wind up burning myself when I pre-warm the rods, and this was no exception.

Overall - it looks like a gunmetal colour - a purplish grey with some streaks of colour - if you look very closely. These colour streaks were more pronounced when it was hot. The one on the left in the first picture - I tried reducing it - no apparent change. The one on the right had a greenish area on it when it went into the kiln - as if it had partially struck. It does seem to have a slightly more purple area on one side.

Interesting glass - bears further experimenting, I think.

Effetre 287: Sediment

Sediment - time to trot out all the bad puns - We could get sedimental about this - and talk about the "seven mental" reasons for loving it. ;-)

Nice streaky organic colour - looks browner when hot, but cools to a warm, slightly brownish grey (much more attractive than a cool, bluish grey, IMHO - but I guess it depends on what you are doing with it).

Apparently - it is very photogenic - these pictures turned out great! The dotted spacer is dotted with Ivory (not sure which one) and it has bled a little, rather attractively.

Would make a rather nice horse bead, I think.

Val Cox Frit: Cherry Blossoms

Working notes for this say:

Opaque - Pink, Peach, Lavender and soft green, classic blend. No-fuss - works well on nearly any base except ivory, with or without silver foil.

I tried it first on the three white spacers. Pretty.

BTW - when I make spacer and frit them - I make one, on the left, apply frit, melt in, make the next - make sure it is the hot one, and roll in the frit from the side - so that only that one really gets the frit on it, and melt in. And work my way down, so that I'm not trying to frit up a whole mandrel full at once - which seldom works well. If you try to do them all at once, one or more will get over-heated and get out of round. The key with doing mandrels full of spacers are to only have ONE hot enough to move at a time.

Also, make them close enough to make it easy to keep them all warm. And if you are making a decision about needing to add glass to make the sizes match - wait until they are the same colour/temperature before deciding to add a bit more glass. You can't judge the size accurately when one is glowing.

Anyhoo - This one is a clear base, rolled in frit and melted in, and then rolled in frit and melted in for a good thick layer of frit. Then encased in clear, and black ends added.

It turned out rather less dramatic than I hoped for (too much frit - not enough contrast) - it would make a nice background for florals, I think. I'm going to have to try this one on a dark background - as it is opaques - that should work.

I can't say how much I really appreciate that the notes that come with these say whether the frit is transparent or opaque or both. That really helps when it comes to making decisions about what to put it on for a base. I appreciate that the blends are proprietary, but it is sooooo nice to be able to use these successfully the first time out!

Lauscha Gold Shell Special

Gold Shell Special - not to be confused with the Blue Plate Special. ;-) A nice creamy gold/coffee colour. Very interesting to watch when very hot. It goes a sort of streaky clear, with cloudy swirls - and then cools to white, and with light reheating - goes this light gold-tan colour. The spacer on the end of the mandrel at right in the first pic, and on the right of the second pic - I put that directly into the kiln without it striking, (it had cooled to white) and if anything, it went a little darker.

Nice organic colour.

Lauscha New Pink SNT 205

The unworked rod looks almost clear - laying there on the bench - sighting directly down it at the light does show colour - but I thought to myself - "This is going to be really pale!"

However - it worked up very nicely into a really lovely shade of pink. Here you see it both over white and by itself.

Just a tremendously soft, pretty colour, very romantic and girly without being saccharine. ;-)

Lauscha Premium Clear

A new batch of Lauscha Clear - Premium Clear. Not entirely sure what that means - as Lauscha clear is pretty gosh darn nice to begin with.

I only had a 4 inch piece to try - which means - I got one bead out of it. ;-) But it seemed really nice. The cut end of the rod did scum up when I put it in the flame - plucked that off - and when I used the entire piece - the other end, also cut, also scummed, and I pulled that off too.

I put it over dichro, because, well - that's what I do.

In general - I LOVE working with Lauscha clear. I love that it is stiff and stays where you put it. I love that it is so clear and brilliant.

There is some resistance to using Lauscha clear by some - as there was a batch of it a few years back that pushed the envelope of compatibility just a little too far and some people were getting cracking. I also got some of that batch and I have to admit - it put me off for a while too. But it is soooo nice.

Rule of thumb - Your kiln should be a little hotter - turn it up to 972 F, and put your bead in still glowing hot. If you had bad luck with Lauscha clear in the past - maybe it's time to try it again?

Oh - and the bubbles in this - my fault - not the glass'. ;-)

Mosiac Green + EDP

Hey - I said I thought that Mosaic Green and EDP would look interesting together. And do they ever! Nice pop to the colours.

Val Cox Frit: Enchanted

Enchanted it's called, and Enchanted I am! Wowsers - dramatic and no-brainer easy. Me likee this one.

Working notes say: Opaq/Trans. Vivid tones of violet, pink, aqua, lime green and salmon - easy to use, max impact. Use w silver foil or without, encased or not, pref. on white or clear base.

These two spacers on the right were the dipped gather technique - get a bead sized gather of glass hot, dip in the frit - melt the frit in, and wind off your bead.



Next up - a simple white cylinder, rolled in the frit. Yumm.

Let's try that with black ends, as virtually any cylinder bead looks sharper with black ends!



I did a few twists and there was some smearing from vigorous marvering too. Very nice.

D4mn - I thought to myself - this would look good with EDP ends!
So here we have white base, enchanted frit. Layer of clear. More Enchanted frit, and the ends built up with EDP (Effetre 254 Purple or Orchid - commonly known as EDP - Evil Devitrifying Purple, or Evil Purple - for it's habit of losing it's gloss and becoming matte textured).

Four adorable little spacers, frit on white, and lastly, a cone, base is Mosaic Green, rolled in Enchanted, with the top of the bead made with some silver satured dark blue, Sascha's Silver or Nyx - not sure what I grabbed. Looks like a garden with a stormy sky behind.

All this, and I still have a little bit of the frit left over.

I really like this one - I would buy this in larger quantities!

Val Cox Frit: Gypsy Skirt

From Sample Pack #801 - this is Frit Gypsy Skirt.

The working notes say:

A blend of Opaque and Transparent. Peach, Salmon, pink, aqua and seafoam. When silver foil is introduced, tones become more dramatic as they shift to warmer shades of gold pink.

My first test - the large flat tablet - was a base of white, with a layer of clear - rolled in frit, melted in, and a layer of clear on top, and mashed.




This second pic is clear, heated into a gather, dipped into the frit - which is melted in, and then wound into a bead.















This is a white base, rolled in silver foil, melted in. Rolled in frit, melted in really hot, cooled, and encased in clear. Mashed, and stringer added.
















This is my fave of the lot - white base, silver foil, melted in, rolled in frit and melted smooth.
Nice organic look.

The pinks of the first bead don't actually do a whole lot for me - not sure why - maybe it needed swirling and some whirlpools. But I like this last bead.

Fritastic - Val Cox Frit Sample Packs

Well - don't these look like fun?

I'm not generally a "frit" person - but after reading Val Cox's book on frit ... OooooKay - I just went looking for the blog posting with my review of this and I cannot find it. (Insert theme from the Twilight Zone here). I swear - I'm sure I wrote a review of this book. Too weird. Her book is good - worth reading.

Anyhow - these beautifully packaged sample kits look like a lot of experimental fun without a lot of commitment.

You get 8 different frits - with her trademark Cool Names and excellent labels. And what I really appreciate is, there is a detailed insert with instructions on how to use frit (and how not to!), why it works with different COEs, and best of all, on the back, a brief description of each one and what to expect. There are so many possibilities with these - it is nice to have some idea of what to expect!

You get about a spoonful of each frit - so enough to make a few beads and have some idea of whether it is a "keeper."

I'll keep you posted as I try them out!

Oopsie Boopsie: the Bondage Goddess

Ooooops! It had been my intention to make a dark midnight sky blue goddess - using Double Helix Nyx - maybe wrap some fine silver wire around her for a spangling of stars and hope that it didn't come off looking like barbed wire.

However - those of you who have worked w Nyx know that the unworked rod is virtually black. Apparently - one of the rods I had on the bench was actually black. So I built the body. Fused the end of the black rod onto the real Nyx rod. Added glass for the belly and the butt, notice the really quite incredible accidental spiral on her butt? Think I could do that again? Not a friggin' chance, eh? That was the transition from one rod to the next.

By now - I am into the actual Nyx - added glass at the shoulders and hips, and then the boobs. In pure Nyx.

Giving an end result that looks like Bondage Goddess garbed in leather.

You know - there's probably a market for these. ;-)