My first cane!

I finally took the bull by the horns and made a cane. Usually, when I want leaves, I use one color, and press the design into the clay, and that always looks pretty good. This time, I decided to get a little more advanced (which, in polymer clay, isn't very advanced at all, but for me, it is!).

See, I used to make dough ornaments-- thousands and thousands and thousands of dough ornaments, for about 6 or 7 years. Very labor-intensive, but in dough, you use only one color at a time, because if you mix them, you get mud. So, no canes.

I normally do my claywork the same way I did doughwork, one color at a time, or maybe all one color for a piece, with some staining for contrast. It always turns out well enough, and I was never interested in millefiore or Skinner blends or anything polymerclay-ish like that. Simple and clean. Some of my work is marbled, which is about as fancy as I ever felt like being. I love seeing other people's work, though, even if I never felt called to up my skill level.


But on Sunday, I got an itch. I wanted leaves. I wanted purty leaves. I wanted leaves that could stand up on their own, in earrings or a bracelet or a necklace, or a doll or whatever. I also wanted something that would blend with plain old green leaves, or vines, or something else solid. So I bit the bullet, checked online for tutorials that I would actually need to remember (I don't have any books on the subject! No! Can't believe it myself.), and got started.

Three times. Because I couldn't for the life of me get a Skinner blend! I got marble (pretty!) and I got a dull yicky flat piece (scrap!), and then FINALLY I got a blend. Oooo, I was so proud of myself!

Then I proceeded to make the cane BACKWARDS. So it was all wonky, and I ended up with more scrap. Then I put too much vein color in the wrong step, and had to carve it out with my stamp-carving tool, and hope for the best.

And it all worked! It's like magic, seeing all the goop at the end of a cane, then slicing that part off, and seeing a leaf inside. Wow.

The first pic is of just plain bead leaves I'll be using, and the second pic shows some leaves stuck onto some scrap-- they look kinda like artichokes, but I got an idea as I was doing it of shingles for a roof, or the sides of a gingerbread house, or scales on a fish. The biggest one will be a light-chain pull. I got the idea from Karen Lewis of The Spirited Bead-- but hers are 'waaaaay better! The principle is very similar to the Chili Ristras I used to make out of dough, but those were all formed as separate chilis, applied in an overlap design onto a center, and then baked flat. And now I'm having ideas about THAT in clay, only I'll make them smaller. And probably my hands won't be dyed red for a week.

Something I don't like, though-- I have to sand the fingerprints out of the leaves. In dough, there's no reason to have to sand anything. Dough just rubs smooth before you bake it. Oh, well.