Wow. I only just realized how long it has been since I actually wrote a post. That is my bad, but I'm here now so...
Let's get right to it, shall we? HEre's what I made last night...
And now, here's how I did it...
I stared, as always by mixing my colours and conditioning the clay. In this case I used a pearlescent teal, and translucent as the main colour palette, and added in some bits of dark blue and purple for the rest of the shades.
This is the teal colour. I ran it through my pasta machine (on the thickest setting) and trimmed the resulting sheet into a uniform shape and rolled it into this fat log.
Now for the fun part. Making the tree and it's branches...
I cut out that tiny wedge in the middle.
Here's what is left when the wedge is removed.
If you are wondering what that white stuff is, it is corn starch. My blade is a little blunt, and the new ones have not yet arrived in the mail. Here's my work around:
The problem with a blade that isn't razor sharp in caning is that it can often have quite a bit of drag, which is definitely NOT what you want.
Provided that the blade isn't too blunt, if you cover it with a tiny dusting of cornstarch (or talc/ baby powder), the drag is reduced considerably. In fact, in this instance, I would go as far as to say that it has been eliminated entirely.
The tree and its branches is made from this mix here. As you might be able to tell from the photo, the colours aren't, and don't have to be, fully blended. In fact, I really like the marbled effect that is created while mixing the colours.
Right, so, again, I rolled the clay through my pasta machine on the thickest setting and lay the sheet out.
With a little guess work, I estimated how much of the clay I would need for my tree, and put the rest aside.
Now this part was really fun to do. I grabbed my silver leaf, in this case I was using the one from Mont Marte (I don't think that the brand matters all that much, but my experience with silver/ gold leaf is rather limited...).
I covered the clay with the silver leaf, and again ran it through the pasta machine (on the same setting) just to help the clay and the silver leaf to form a good bond.
Then I simply filled that wedged gap from before with the now silver covered sheet.
I continued making cuts in the teal cane (this time without cutting any of the teal away) and inserting sheets of the darker colour. I tried to make sure that the silver side was always facing the top of the tree (although,again, I don't think that it matters all that much).
This is what I ended up with once I had all my branches in place. I also widened the base of the tree's trunk by cutting away small sections and replacing the teal with the darker mix.
The last thing to do is wrap the entire cane with a final sheet of clay.
What I did was use what was left of the branches' clay and mixed in the silver leaf so that it looked like glitter in the clay (without having any of the issues that glitter has where caning is concerned) and added a tough of royal purple to make it darker still.
Back to the pasta machine and then just roll the cane up. Easy-peasy!
When that is all said and done (an the ends have been trimmed), this is what I got.
I don't know about you, but I quite like it!
Here I was playing around with my first slice, adding tome textures to the back ground etc., just to see what I like.
(The coin is an Australian 50c, and yes, it is the biggest coin ever
made that is still in use, in my opinion anyway. A few of those puppies
in your purse and not only does it weight a tonne, but that puppy might
not even close!)
After playing around with it for a
while, I came to realize that I really just don't like that low branch
on the right. It was just weird.
No need to panic, or even re-do the entire cane.Here's how I fixed it:
I simply cut out the offending bits of clay.
Took one of the end buts that I cut off earlier.
Cut off a small slice and 'harvested' some of the teal. This is a good idea if you no longer have any of the original colour left, or if you just wan to make entirely sure that the colours will match exactly, and that the fix will not be visible after the fact, especially after baking.
Pop that bit in the hole and do a but of smoothing and blending to hide the fact that it was once a hole...
Voila! No more branch, and Anna is once again happy!
Its all good and well to have these awesome cane slices, but before baking, I needed to decide what they will become. In this case I opted for either a pendant or a key-charm. Either way, we will need some way of attaching it to wither a key-ring, or a chain, so time to dig into my beading supplies and find some of these loopy things (eye-hooks they're called, if I am not mistaken).
(This step isn't essential, but I like to do it, just to be safe.)
I add a little kink in the straight part of the wire, the part that will be embedded in the clay. In my experience, a straight wire/ pin is likely to pull out at some point, but a curved or bent wire is a lot more likely to stay put.
So I don't like to have the design on both sides of these things, for no particular reason other than I don't like it...
What I do instead is take some of the scrap bits from the caning process (there is always a whole lot more than I care to have anyway) and mix these together, but only barely; so that I get that same lovely marbled effect as on the tree branches. then I simply make a disc the same size as my cane slice and butt them together. before doing that, I add the loopy thing (making sure that it is positioned correctly).
Finally I make my mark on the back, along with the date, because, in my opinion, if you are proud of something, you should put your name on it.
The last thing I did was add some different coloured pearl ex powers, and then I baked the whole lot at 115°C for about 45 minutes.
And there you have it! Quick and easy!!!
Well, that is all I have for you for tonight, but be sure to check back in a few days, as I have been rather busy, and I have two other projects to share.
Until next time,
ACL
PS. For those of you who would like to support me and my at, please think about heading over to my Patreon page and becoming a patron: https://www.patreon.com/annacl . I would be eternally grateful.
PSS I have been using a different, instant, communications platform, and if you are interested in contacting me with questions and/ or comments, find me instantly (messages are sent directly to my phone) here:
https://reaches.me:8443/urlchat.html?guestid=6aa28459a91aad02692a9334f633919a
Its
a fairly unique platform with a huge range of uses and features, but I like the
chat. Alternatively, download it form the PlayStore. Search for
chatWORLD or follow this link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.world.chatworld&hl=en
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