Glass Color Testing: CiM 540 Class M Planet Ltd. Run

The current batch of new colors from Creation is Messy came with a couple of colors that contain more silver than most, making for interesting reactions and striking. I'm reviewing the first one here - a lovely lapis blue called Class M Planet (points for the Star Trek reference, of course!)

In rod form, this color looks like a muddy blue. But what you get when melting this glass is not much like the rod color.

I had a hard time controlling Class M Planet at first - that is until I started just putting clear on it. (in this case, DH Zephyr, to avoid any reaction.) The first spacers I made turned a dark forest-y green color, and stayed that way until I tried to strike the glass. The longer you work this color, the bluer it tends to get.  It will go back green as you strike, until you start layering or encasing it. This large bead was a base of blue with clear stringer melted in, then encased again in clear. Some color striations appeared, but stayed mostly blue.

Melting this glass is pretty easy. It does have a lot of silver in it, so it's not as smooth and buttery as most opaques, but can take some good heat. Encasing it with clear and pulling stringer gave me a soft lapis blue color that I quite like. However, because this color as a lot of silver, your stringer can be lumpy if not hot enough when pulling.

It doesn't tend to bleed, but can spread a little bit when melting it in as decoration, but not enough to make me mad. :) For the most part, as I worked the glass in the beads below, Class M Planet stayed a pretty lapis blue, sometimes fading to a teal-ish color here and there. But in the kiln, most of it went back to blue. This is especially true when heavily encased. The green shows up more when the color is "naked" and raised. I preferred the blue, so that's mostly how I used it.

Even though Class M Planet is a glass that contains a lot of silver, I didn't get any reaction when using a reduction flame.  The metallic effects on the beads below were done with DH Elektra.

Glass Beadmaking: Absence of Color - Focusing on Design

This time of year, I usually start making beads in fall colors - purples, ambers, oranges, greens, browns, etc. For some reason this year, I remain sort of uninspired.  Maybe it's the weather (which has been uncharacteristically warm in the Northwest this year). Maybe it's the stress. Who knows. So, I decided to take the color out of the equation this week and just work with black and white. 

Glass used: Vetrofond Black, Effetre White and Double Helix Aether.

Working with black and white is fun because the stability of the glass I use allows me to go crazy with stacking, masking, raking and twisting, and still end up with crisp, clear designs on the beads.

My favorite bead uses encased white stringer with masked black and white dots.

For black, I primarily use Vetrofond Black. It's sad, though, because it's been discontinued and I can't find it anywhere anymore.  I am down to my last two rods (!!)  I am hoping that CiM Hades will work in its place, but we'll have to see.

For those who are unaware, all black glass is not alike.  The reason why is that black is not an opaque color - it's a very, very dark transparent color, technically speaking.  Effetre Black, which I think is the most commonly used black glass out there (in beadmaking anyway), is really just a super dark transparent plum/purple. It's not dark enough to prevent it from bleeding into other colors, though, and that's most evident when you use it with white.  Lines are not as crisp, and you can see a slight purpling of the edges of the white when both are layered together.

Most other black glasses I have used have similar issues. They either spread, feather or discolor any pale opaque color used with them.

Some black glasses are actually made that way on purpose (Effetre Intense Black for instance). Some beadmakers are very adept at using that property to their advantage when making beads with organic, freeform designs.

Vetrofond Black is great, because it is based in blue and not purple, and it seems to be darker and to have more stability.  So the lines are really crisp, and there is very little bleeding.

CiM has several black glasses, and I have read that Hades is the best when it comes to stability and darkness.  Yey!  In the meantime, I am going to keep my eye out for stashes of Vetrofond Black.

Beads with designs close to the holes

I got a lot of joy making black and white beads this week.  I think my designs have gotten more intricate over the years, and my beads have gotten slightly smaller.  I really love tiny intricate work!

 I've also been focusing on asymmetry - making the designs pull focus toward the hole and not toward the center of the bead. Just for fun and visual interest.

Next week, it's back to fall colors, I think.  I really do love autumn, so hopefully inspiration will find its way back to me. :)

These are all available on my website of you're interested.