Messy Color™ Emperor

511621 -

Emperor (511621)<br />A golden transparent purple.

A golden transparent purple.




"Emperor is a purple-plum-pink and if you hold it up to the sunlight it just glows this wonderful deep cherry jam pink colour. That’s brilliant but when I layered it thinly over the white? Heck, I actually did a “Wooo!” out loud in the shed! LOOK AT IT. It’s a red-pink-plum shade that I have never seen in the beady world before. Like Rubino, Emperor is a bit of a striking glass but not in a tricky way. Just work with it and it’ll do most of the striking on its own as you work on adding stringer and doing general bead faffery. You’ll need to strike it if you’re using it for plain spacers, though." Read more at Laura's tumblr. – Laura Sparling

Click here for other interesting Emperor discoveries.

 
Emperor & Autumn
Kandice Seeber
Emperor over white
Joy Munshower
A barrel bead made with a base of CiM's Aiko Ltd Run in the centre and CiM Emperor ends.
Darlene Collette
CiM Heffalump, Emperor and Simply Berry spacers
Laura Sparling
Messy Emperor Ltd Run
Jolene Wolfe
Emperor over dichroic flakes
Celia Friedman

CiM Tester Feedback

  • Emperor is our batch mixer's experiment in mixing Cranberry Pink [rubino oro] and Sakura [a saturated transparent pink].
  • Special thanks to Joy Munshower for providing the photo in this section.

Join Trudi Doherty's FB group Lampwork Colour Resource Sharing Information for a catalogue of color study.
Claudia Eidenbenz’s "Vetrothek" (glass library) is a great resource for color comparisons.
See Kay Powell’s frit testing samples.
Browse Serena Thomas’ color gallery.
Check out Miriam Steger’s CiM color charts.
Consult Jolene Wolfe's glass testing resource page.


"I was not fond of Emperor the first couple of times I tried it. I couldn’t get any color at all. I work fast, hot, and small, which made this glass super uncooperative. It likes to be cool. In layers and large complicated beads it strikes fine. In small spacers and headpins, not so much. I've discovered you just need to be patient and let it cool down. Work with it like normal and ignore it until you need it to strike. Then let it cool until the glow is gone completely, to the point that it makes you nervous. Then strike it gently at the very edge of the flame. Watching the color bloom is so satisfying."
Dana Phillips
A comparison of Emperor & Cranberry Pink. See more at Darlene's blog.
Darlene Collette
"The glorious pink here is Emperor. It’s actually marketed as a gold purple and it has a definite purpleness to it but I’ve found that the cooler and slower I work it, the more reddish-pink it is. I didn’t strike it as such – just working at slower, cooler rate allows the colour to bloom. Having said that, I always like to point out that to get this colour other factors are most likely involved, and what works for one lampworker might not work for another because there are so many variables: the torch, the propane and oxy levels, your technique, where you work in the flame, how long you take to make your bead, the bead shape and size, how many times you cool and reheat it, your garaging temperature, your annealing schedule, the phase the moon is in, and quite possibly what colour pants you have on. I’m saying this because Emperor is one of the most expensive glasses out there and I wouldn’t want anyone to spend a load of dosh on glass that they may find doesn’t work for them."
Laura Sparling
"The focal bead was created on a base of Emperor, a golden transparent purple, with Double Helix Kronos 2 silver glass powder wrapped in silver wire and encased in Zephyr. CiM Enchanted was added to each end with streams of Double Helix Melia added and lightly reduced to a metallic shine. The spacers are CiM Amethyst." See more at Darlene's blog.
Darlene Collette
"This faux vessel started with a base of Peppermint Cream with an Emperor encasement. The bead was then sprinkled with Double Helix Psyche frit and encased. Each shoulder of the bead is CiM's Egg White ends and shaped into a vessel." Read more at Darlene's blog.
Darlene Collette
"Emperor is a really pretty color. I feel it is often overlooked because it looks like a super expensive purple when it is really a gold pink/purple color. It is reactive like Cranberry Pink and Rubino Oro because it contains gold." Here, a comparison of Emperor and Cranberry Pink encasing Effetre bubblegum pink.
Caroline Davis
"This is CiM Emperor over Effetre bubble gum pink with gold foil."
Caroline Davis
"The floral cane is made with a base of bubble gum pink rolled in Pretty in Pink frit with stripes of CiM Cranberry Pink and Emperor."
Caroline Davis
"Emperor & Cranberry Pink. I could tell which side was which when it went into the kiln but they look incredibly similar after annealing. Emperor kiln-struck to a much darker, richer hue."
Lori Peterson
"Here, a Honey Mustard base. Left: dotted with CiM Cranberry Pink and CiM Smurfy. Right: dotted with CiM Emperor and CiM Smurfy." Read more at Kitzbitz Art Glass' blog.
Jolene Wolfe
"I had a lot of fun yesterday making these dotty lentils for comparison testing over a trio of neutral base colours, I was particularly looking to see how each trio of colours reacted with one another. Here, an Effetre Opal Yellow base. Left: dotted with CiM Cranberry Pink and CiM Smurfy. Right: dotted with CiM Emperor and CiM Smurfy." Read more at Kitzbitz Art Glass' blog.
Jolene Wolfe
"In my latest testing package there was a rod each of CiM's gorgeous Cranberry Pink and their gold rich purple equivalent called Emperor. Here, a Baked Alaska base. Left: dotted with CiM Cranberry Pink and CiM Smurfy. Right: dotted with CiM Emperor and CiM Smurfy." Read more at Kitzbitz Art Glass' blog.
Jolene Wolfe
"Like Cranberry Pink, Emperor is made with gold and is a richly saturated colour. In rod form it does look similar to Cranberry, but once you work it the difference becomes more apparent. It has more red [slight brown tones] than Cranberry and leans more towards purple, think plum jam and that's what it's like. Like other colours made with gold it does have reactive properties, not as strong as some, but if you look closely at the beads over Heffalump you will notice that the Periwinkle dots have slightly 'sunk' in. This was an easy colour to work with, although I did find that over Frozen I did need to flame strike it. But over the other colours I didn't. It looks great layered over other colours, and if Cranberry is too bright for you maybe Emperor will tick your box!"
Trudi Doherty
"Emperor is not a 'what you see is what you get' glass. For starters - the product code gives away that CiM does not consider this to be a pink [as the pinks are all 900 series numbers.] I actually went looking for it in their browns section, as it is more of a cherry-amber colour to my eye. CiM calls it a 'golden transparent purple.' Just so long as you are not expecting it to stay the pretty pink that it is before you heat it." Read more at DragonJools blog.
Dwyn Tomlinson
"Emperor, to me, is like a slightly subdued, purplish version of CiM Cranberry. The reactions are basically the same as Cranberry, and the basic hue of it is Cranberry-like. Also, this colour gets purpler the more you strike it, which Cranberry doesn't do. The main technical observation that I have about working with Emperor is that it is difficult to get Emperor to strike when it is used in thin layers, but that's not terribly unusual for a striking color." Read more at Melanie's blog.
Melanie Graham
"Emperor is a purple-plum-pink and if you hold it up to the sunlight it just glows this wonderful deep cherry jam pink colour. That’s brilliant but when I layered it thinly over the white? Heck, I actually did a “Wooo!” out loud in the shed! LOOK AT IT. It’s a red-pink-plum shade that I have never seen in the beady world before. Like Rubino, Emperor is a bit of a striking glass but not in a tricky way. Just work with it and it’ll do most of the striking on its own as you work on adding stringer and doing general bead faffery. You’ll need to strike it if you’re using it for plain spacers, though." Read more at Laura's tumblr.
Laura Sparling
"When using Emperor as a plain color, it's a pinkish amethyst that doesn't have the brown tones that Effetre's amethyst purples do, which is nice. But I think this glass is probably better used as a layering color to expand your palette - because boy does it layer well!! In this bead, I used Autumn as the base, put a layer of Emperor down, and then encased it in clear. Then I put down dots of opaque Dark Pink and layered Emperor on top and melted, for a sweet shade of pink." Read more at Kandice's blog.
Kandice Seeber
"Emperor is a lovely plum-kissed version of Sakura. Depending on the application, the color may vary in intensity. The color on its own is an intense wine. When paired with other transparent colors of glass, Emperor is subdued and soft [shown on top of the white flower is Emperor, Tutu, Effetre Dark Lavender, and clear]." Read more at Heather's blog.
Heather Sellers
"Emperor seems to need to be struck to get the purple rod color. I’m not getting any reactions - just a grayed light purple look no matter how many times I strike it. L to R: 1 unstruck, 2 & 3 struck, 4 & 5 over Peace, 6 over French Blue."
Gloria Sevey
"When used as tiny dots it has quite a bit in common with Effetre Rubino Oro in the way it spreads and some reactions. In the image top left I have used stringers of Rubino and Emperor over hand pulled Effetre pale Opal Yellow to create raked fern decorations. Both glasses spread beautifully, the Rubino turned orange/yellow over the Opal Yellow and Emperor stayed deliciously pink." Read more at Kitzbitz Art Glass' blog.
Jolene Wolfe