Test Results :: Mosaic Green

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 6 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 7 & 8 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory & Peace

Effetre Mosaic Green is another crazy colour. I seem to be writing up test results for quite a few of those lately.

Mosaic Green is a pure dark green. You can't really get greener than this colour. I'm a little confused about whether it's an opaque or a transparent, because it has a transparent colour number and is sold at Frantz as a transparent, but I have also seen it sold as an opaque colour (on Delphi's website, for one) and it seems not transparent at all to me when I use it. When pulled out into stringer, it's very transparent (but DARK), although as you can see, it is not transparent in any of these test beads.

You can see in the self-coloured spacer on the left that Mosaic Green is a crazily streaky, mottling colour. When Mosaic Green is reduced, all of the bits between the dark streaks develop a rich red copper patina.

When Silver Leaf is melted into the surface of Mosaic Green, it just kinda disappears, except for some silvery bits that seem to get stuck in the 'cracks' formed by the mottled webbing of the surface. When the silver is reduced and encased, it goes a weird blueish grey colour, in a lacy, low-surface-coverage kind of way.

Silver Glass is not particularly effective on top of Mosaic Green, although the results are sort of interesting. My reducing silver glass frit has been somewhat swallowed by the Mosaic Green so there's not much left on the surface, but for the frit that IS left on the surface, an interesting separation has occured so that the edges of the frit are far lighter than the middles of each little bit. My TerraNova2 frit struck to blue on top of Mosaic Green, but the Mosaic Green so aggressively swallowed so much of it that it's not all that evident.

On top of Tuxedo, Mosaic Green separates so that it is lighter and more opaque around the edges, and is dark and seems completely transparent in the middle of the stringer lines. This might just be an illusion because it's on black and Mosaic Green is so dark, but it's odd. Tuxedo doesn't do much on top of Mosaic Green, although the Mosaic Green underneath it in the bead on the right looks more crazily mottled than it does under either Copper Green or Opal Yellow.

Copper Green separates on top of Mosaic Green, and the separation is a lot like what it does on top of EDP, Sedona, Steel Blue, Olive, Cocoa, Flamingo, Opal Raspberry (and I'm sure I'm missing some), but there is a slight difference. The dark line in the centre of the Copper Green lines and the dots in the middle of the Copper Green dots are more of an intense blue colour than they are turquoise, and they are also super thin/small. The edges of the Copper Green stringer work look almost frayed, because of the Mosaic Green bleeding into them.

When Mosaic Green is used on top of Copper Green, a light turquoise halo pops up around the Mosaic Green stringer lines, and a darker turquoise veining remains underneath, looking kind've like grout. The Mosaic Green separates so that a dark line runs down its centre, less dramatically than with Tuxedo but still pretty intensely.

Opal Yellow on top of Mosaic Green is a pretty similar story to what I just explained about the Copper Green reaction, except that the Opal Yellow takes on a lot of the Mosaic Green colour. You can see around the edges of the Opal Yellow stringer work that there has been a crazy amount of bleeding and almost all of the yellow has some level of green contamination. Also, the line down the middle of the Opal Yellow stringer work looks black rather than blue. When Mosaic Green is used on top of Opal Yellow, the Opal Yellow rises up around it in self-coloured halos, and the Mosaic Green bleeds into it.

When Ivory stringer work is done on top of Mosaic Green, it doesn't develop a dark line reaction. It just turns a dark brownish black completely. When Mosaic Green is used on top of Ivory, all of the Mosaic Green stringer lines and dots are surrounded by a dark brown miasma, that sort of reminds me of what happens in SimCity when your industrial buildings cause ground pollution.

In order to not repeat myself too much, I'm going to cheat and say that Peace reacts with Mosaic Green in almost the exact same way as Opal Yellow when it is used on top of Mosaic Green. However, when Mosaic Green is used on top of Peace, it doesn't really get those cool raised 'halos' that the Opal Yellow gets, and the Mosaic Green bleeds into it a lot. So much that the edges of the dots and stringer lines are sort of hard to look at because of their neon green-ness.

Mosaic Green is unexpectedly beautiful in sculptural work. It looks like Malachite in my goddess bead.

Test Results :: Banana Cream

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 6 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 7 & 8 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory and Peace

Vetrofond Banana Cream is, hands down, my favourite yellow opaque glass. When it comes to yellow glass, I am really picky. I don't like 'acid' yellows so much - I like my yellows sort of toned down. I also appreciate yellows that have interesting working properties.

Banana Cream is sort of weird while it's melting. It goes translucent and seems to have sparkles all through it. These sparkles and the translucency resolve themselves into an opaque yellow when it cools, but it's really fun to watch it while it's molten.

On top of Banana Cream, silver leaf forms an opaque, shiny layer that is mottled grey, blue and gold. When this reaction is reduced and encased, it forms a snowy, bluish blanket over the yellow underneath the clear.

Adding silver to Banana Cream fumes it a richer, brownish yellow colour -- particularly when the bead is reduced. It seems to make a nicer base for the reducing silver glasses than it does the strikers, if the results above are representative. The only issue I have with the reducing silver glasses on Banana Cream is that the blues and yellow sort of clash.

You can see in the bead on the left how Banana Cream can be a sort of mottled colour. Particularly on top of Copper Green, you can see how it is much yellower in some places than others.

There is a faint reaction with Tuxedo on both of the test beads, above, however it is very subtle. In the bead on the left, you can see that the edges of the Banana Cream stringer lines have curdled in places. In the bead on the right, there is a very faint, thin yellow outline surrounding the dots and lines of Tuxedo.
On top of Copper Green, in addition to the mottledness noted above (which is not specific to a reaction with Copper Green) you can see a dark outline around the Banana Cream. A similar dark outline appears when Copper Green is used on top of Banana Cream, however in that case the Copper Green also separates slightly, making the effect even more three-dimensional.

On top of Opal Yellow, most of the 'extra yellow' in Banana Cream seems to migrate to the edges of the lines and dots I made with the stringer, a subtle separation effect. It also seems to get a translucent line around it, making the dots and stringer lines seem to be lifted a little above the surface of the Opal Yellow. Opal Yellow on top of Banana Cream develops a brown line reaction.

There isn't much in the way of reaction with Ivory, which makes sense since Ivory and Banana Cream belong to the same family of sulfur colours.

Peace separates slightly on top of Banana Cream, and I also got some greyness although that might have been my fault rather than to do with any reaction. on top of Peace, Banana Cream's mottledness is very pronounced, and like with Opal Yellow, a faint translucent edge to the dots and stringer lines make them look like they are raised slightly off the bead.
Here are some fun beads with Banana Cream.

The more you work Banana Cream, the yellower it strikes.