Not So Secret Testing for Tuffnel Glass!

So this morning an exciting little package arrived from Tuffnell Glass with the new colours from Effetre from the left above : Green Cave, Light Umber, Yellow Barlotti, Turq. Grey Pastille, Moss Green, Antique Green Pastille.  I was so busy making the larger beads I  ran out of mandrels so there are the two rods infront as well, Marc Pastille that beautiful mocha colour and Wood so 8 new colours in total.  You will be able to see those in action in the beads below!  My first observation was that the Turq Grey Pastille is a fabulous colour but it reduces quite heavily, personally I liked the slightly antique shiny finish that appeared but might not be for everyone and the Antique Green Pastille also reduced slightly too.

I usually use much brighter colours so to play the game, I limited myself to the 8 new colours and added white and clear to complete the palatte. I then created a range of beads with this restricted colour range.  I work quite hot and I was looking for crisp lines and in this instance all the glass passed that test apart from the Yellow Barlotti which had a tendancy to go blurry if used for small detail, but it is a fab egg yolk colour and you can see on the other beads where the  Yellow Barlotti is used to create lines and shading it behaves beautifully.  It was only as small dots like the ones on the wheel that blur but it was in the flame for a long time!   I loved the greens and the 5th bead in the row below was my favourite the colours all blend so beautifully together….You have a touch of the Light Umber then Moss Green, Antique Green Pastille, Green Cave and Wood, the base of the bead is Wood as are the bumps, Wood is a great cream colour and a lovely alternative to white.

All in all lovely colours and the Light Umber is a great addition to the brown palette as is the Mark Pastille both are rich tones and great to work with.   I will be updating on new glass that arrives at Tuffnell as and when they ask me to to show what they look like within designs so exciting.  Thank you for reading my blog and if you want to find out more about me do join my Facebook Page the link is on the right of the page.