Sunday, January 26, 2014

More on copper green

In addition to the reaction between copper green and EDP which I talked about last week, copper green reacts with iris orange or raku glass, manufactured by Reichenbach.  This glass has a COE of 96 and so can't be used in large quantities with COE 104 glass, but it can be used as frit, small particles of glass used on the surface of COE 104 glass.  When it is used in this way with copper green, it produces a bright turquoise line of color adjacent to the raku, as shown in this picture:





The top bead is made with lines of raku stringer over a copper green bead.  I make the stringer by tipping the hot tip of a clear glass rod into raku frit, melting and repeating until I have a nice gather of raku.  Then I pull it into a medium diameter stringer, which I apply to the copper green core.  After melting in the raku stringer, I added a few twists for visual interest.  The bottom two beads were made by dipping a core bead of copper green into raku frit, melting the frit in and adding twists.  As usual, look for jewelry made from similar beads in my Etsy shop:  etsy.com/shop/DeborahDRoss.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Copper green and EDP

One of my favorite colors of Effetre glass is copper green (219).  I like the minty green color when it is used alone.  I think it goes particularly well with black.  It also produces an interesting reaction with Effetre purple (254- also known as Evil Devitrifying Purple because it tends to lose its glassy sheen and become matte if mishandled), which Lynn Short reported on at a recent meeting of Southern Flames. The effect is shown in the beads below:


The color of the copper green glass in proximity to the EDP intensifies to a bright turquoise.  When copper green stringer is applied to an EDP base, there is a line of intense turquoise surrounded by lighter green Upper middle).  The bottom two beads show the effect of EDP stringers on a base bead of copper green.  The downside of using this effect is the possibility of EDP devitrifying and producing a white scum, which it does quite easily.  As suggested on the forum Wetcanvas, right before you finish the bead, put it in the hottest part of the flame until the purple turns glassy.  Then take it out and don't put it back into the flame.