THE ANISE WHITE EFFECT

     I start with a blank of anise white glass (Efferte Pastel 208) using a neutral flame. Without forming a shaped blank bead first, I lay on a “design” of black shapes. These could be anything like dots, lines, gobs, patches, or squiggles.

     Next, I use anise white again and draw a smaller line over the black line lines. At this point I have a white gob with a black and white raised pattern.

     Next, I set my flame to a medium reducing flame. I melt everything until the glass moves towards the middle and has pointy ends and is a very hot bright yellow. When this form is on center and hardened I reheat the right end and move the glass towards the end of the footprint and marver it to a puckered end. I then do the other end to match.

     At this point I have a bead that is black, white and rust (or darker). What has happened is that the anise white has provided an oxide that is rust color (or darker). The base bead is now rust color where there is no black design. Also, there is another aspect of the anise effect. When I traced over the black line with the anise white and melted it in the reducing flame, the white line “arranged” the rust oxide into a line that sits in the middle of the white line. The look of any black line that is traced with white and reduced is black, white, rust, white, and black. You get five lines from two applied lines! The bead is now finished unless you are going to silver fume it.

     The final step is silver fuming the bead. First, however, I need to say that fuming with any metal is dangerous! Unless you understand all the safety aspects of fuming you should not attempt this at home. I explain the process of fuming in the Jim Kervin booklet about my work.

     I set the torch with a reducing flame and when the temperature of the bead is just right I lightly fume the bead. This produces a blue hue on the black areas and turns anything that was still white to a beautiful tan ivory (different from the rust). The fuming can also give some cream colors in patches or speckles.

     Have fun with this and stay on center. James Smircich

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