reactive silvered glass
About Vetrofond ELO and ELO-Pale
There has been a number of unusual “Odd” Ivory based glass colors coming from the Italian glass factory called Vetrofond lately. Read more
Glass Colors I Like and Why (10-15-10)
The new shipment of “Odd” neutral colors from Vetrofond are a fabulous base color for working with many of those expensive silvered glass colors made by Double Helix, Trautman Art Glass and Precision 104. Read more
More about Silver Glass Colors
I recently paid a visit to Double Helix Glassworks to ask Jed (glass maker extraordinaire) some questions on how to get good color out of some of his more challenging palette.
I bet I am not the only person who finds using the new silvered glass colors a little frustrating sometimes. I look online and see fabulous beads that some people managed to make out of the silvered glass colors and say to myself, I ought to try that. It is a bummer when I do try colors like Luna, Pandora and Khaos, to mention a few and all I manage to make is poop colored beads with no flashing colors of blue, teal, ruby and purple.
When I asked Jed what I was doing wrong, I got a lecture on how the crystal growth manifests in the heated glass. What it boiled down to was that I was over working the glass when I made a bead. Apparently if you take a bead that has transitioned into the tan – poop brown color range, you should heat it all the way to clear and take it out of the flame and cool it until it is not glowing and then just kiss the bead with the edge of the flame way out on the tip to bring out the desired colors.
One of my first beads I made with Khaos that turned poop colored.
I think a beadmakers working style and the type of torch and fuel they use has some major effects on the out come, but I have seen beautiful silvered glass beads made on all types of torches. Jed also suggested that turning up the oxygen when I work silvered glass colors could produce better results.
I have better luck with the silvered glass colors that you reduce to bring up the metals to the surface like Triton and Aurae. It took me awhile to figure out how to get good results with Psyche and I made a major breakthrough when I discovered that Psyche worked really well when it was used over Opal Yellow, Dark Ivory and a new Vetrofond “Odd” color called ELO. Dark Ivory gives a more organic look to the beads when used with the silver colors because it produces heavy webbing with black lines in it. I have become an avid fan of ELO since it arrived from Italy because many of the silvered glass colors look fabulous when you use ELO as the base for the bead. Instead of the heavy webbing that Dark Ivory produces, ELO gets warm sepia fuming on the surface of the bead that is just plain yummy and the silvered glass colors glow on this particular “odd” glass.
Example of heavy webbing on Dark Ivory decorated with Triton.
Example of TE -362 from Double Helix over ELO.
Double Helix Glassworks has been producing more new glass colors of late like Clio and Ekho that start out looking like a transparent lavender glass and change tobeautiful lustered ruby colors – yum!
Bead made with Ekho and encased with Aether.
Tabular bead made with CiM Creamsicle and Electric Avenue and decorated with Triton.
Tabular bead made with CiM Poison Apple with Triton swirls.
Bead made with CiM Canyon de Chilly, decorated with Psyche and encased with clear.
Need More Information and Inspiration?
When you click on the Web Gallery, a web page appears that shows links for the three different sections of the web gallery that are Focal Beads, Spacer Beads and Strands. Click on one of the choices and you will be taken to a page of thumb (small images) to pick from. When you click on a thumb image, a large image will appear with a list of the different glass colors that were used in that bead and the glass colors are linked to the Frantz Art Glass web page for easy purchase, plus pertinent information on how the bead was made. Read more
Effetre Silver and Zucca Glass (3/12/09)
I am writing about the Effetre Silver and Zucca Glass for Lampworkers colors named “The Silver Challenge 7 Rod Assortment”, which were given out or sold with orders placed in mid-November. I am urging everyone who got this glass to please send in photos of their results (good or bad), so that they can be entered into the raffle for a box of rare glass from Mike’s vault.
The seven glass colors in the "Silver Challenge" assortment.
A beadmaking friend, Sue Stewart and I both did test beads and I am posting different examples of what we got from these new colors. We want to see what everyone else made out of these new colors.
I liked the Silver #4 the best out of the four silver colors and I really like the yellow and orange colors from this group. Listed below are the names and reference numbers for the “Silver Challenge 7 Rod Assortment”.
- Silver #1 – 591718
- Silver #2 – 591719
- Silver #3 – 591720
- Silver #4 – 591721
- Yellow Ocra – 591411
- Lt. Zucca – 591425
- Dark Zucca – 592426
BTW Sue Stewart is teaching several different classes at Frantz Art Glass focusing on techniques for using silver glass in beadmaking.
Bead made out of Silver #1 with twisty of Psyche and Opal Yellow, then encased with Aether.
Core of bead made with Silver #4 and encased with Aether.
Bead by Sue Stewart made with Silver #1, Ivory and Clear.
Bead by Sue Stewart made with Silver #2, Pulsar and Mermaid.
Bead made with #591425 Light Zucca and silvered Ivory shards.
Core of bead made with Silver #3 decorated with a Psyche stringer and encased with Clear.
Bead by Sue Stewart made with Silver #3 and encased with clear.
Bead by Sue Stewart made with Silver #2, Unique Sapphire and Clear.
Bead made with Yellow Orca and decorated with Black Metallic shards.
Bead made with Silver #4 and decorated with reduced Triton designs.
Bead made with Dark Zucca and decorated with silvered Ivory shards and Triton.
Bead by Sue Stewart made with Silver #1 over Teal.
More New Colors from CiM – Messy Color
here are three New Colors from CiM this week, that were made at the request of the lampworking community. The new colors are:
- Poison Apple
- Mink
- Mermaid
Poison Apple – # 511487
Mink – # 511788
Mermaid – # 511586
I have had the pleasure to make beads with these three new colors this week and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised with the results of my experimenting.
In rod form, Poison Apple looks very translucent bright green, but as you work it in the heat it becomes denser and loses some of its translucent look. The first bead I made with it was a straight forward Sangre (red) and Poison Apple (green) short bicone with a band of goldstone ribbon cane and red opaque bumps. I got many comments that the bead looked very Christmassy. The next bead I made had a core of Poison Apple with a band of reduced Triton that was twisted into swirls around the bead and encased in Aether. That combination really popped and the bead was both simple and flashy at the same time. I made an even bigger Poison Apple bead with a spiral wrap of reduced Triton that was swirled and encased with Aether. I really like this bead, it made me a lover of Poison Apple and I have never liked any of the greens similar to Poison Apple before.
Poison Apple with Triton swirls
Poison Apple and Sangre bicone.
The next big surprise was the Mink which is a medium opal brown. I have never seen any color in soft glass that looks like Mink and that alone makes it an important addition to the available glass color palette. I was wowed when I paired the Mink with goldstone ribbon cane and Sangre, it looks so good I wanted to eat it. I also made another bead with goldstone ribbon cane and reduced Triton around the middle and was really pleased with the results.
Mink with Sangre and Goldstone.
Mink with band of goldstone and swirled Triton.
The last color is Mermaid which kind of looks like a cross between Petroleum Green and Dark Turquoise. This color has received the strongest positive response from most beadmakers and rightly so because it is beautiful and fills an empty place in the present glass color palette. I have made several beads out of Mermaid and I like them all.
Mermaid with Triton swirls.
Mermaid designs over Ivory.
There is a fourth color that arrived this week that is a remake of a previously released green called Commando. I was told by CiM that too many beadmakers complained that Olive and Commando were too close in hue, so Commando was reformulated and the result is a drab camouflage green that looks a lot like what the plant “Green Sage” really looks like. The reformulation of Commando has given the lampworking community yet another green thathasn’t been available until now which I think is great.
New Commando with swirl flower
Triton swirls over Poison Apple.
Mermaid with swirl flower.