May 21st, 2006
When you are reading this post, I will already be on vacation. One sentence here, one piece of clothing to the luggage. T-shirts are coming with me, the computer remains here. Sun lotions are coming, cell phone remains. Books are coming, TV remains. Camera is coming only to take family pictures. All the things that needs to be done remains here. I will be detoxing my body, my soul and my nerves.
I had described how to prepare a flower cane two posts before. Now I will use different colors of the same cane to create a candle holder.
I sliced the cane and placed them one by one on a glassware.
After covering the whole glass, I use a roller with the help of a piece of baking sheet to merge the pattern.
After baking, you may apply a varnish but I preferred not to use on this one. Below is how it looks when you light the candle in dark.
May 7th, 2006
This is an adaptation of the old Japanese metal working technique called Makume Gane to Polymer clays. Well, it won’t look like the original Mokume Gane metal works if you have seen one but we will still get interesting colors and patterns. You can see a sample above.
I used a gold leaf and four different polymer clays, namely, metallic blue, pearl, translucent and white. The latter three clays might seem too close in color but they will be look quite distinct at the end.
Start with rolling the clays into thin sheets. How thin? Mine was less than a mm. Generally thin sheets will give you better results. Cut the sheets with the help of a square stencil.
Stack the clay sheets with the gold leaf in the middle.
After applying slight pressure, cut the stack in half.
Place the two halves on top of each other.
Then repeat the cutting and stacking to obtain a multi-layered stack as shown.
Here is the creative part. Push a stick (circular section) through the stack (see above) to create a number of deep holes. Pay attention not to create too uniform holes for better results. I used a chopstick here.
And here are the results. I think it is an amazing effect. Different pattern in each slice.
May 5th, 2006
Spring has inspired a lot of bloggers to photograph, illustrate and draw flowers. Here is a tutorial of the same spirit.
I had prepared the same flowers of different colors for Mina’s room. Materials are translucent, fluorescent pink and metallic blue polymer clays. Begin with mixing translucent and fluorescent pink clays in the proportion shown below.
You will obtain a very light pink clay. Wrap a thin sheet of fluorescent pink around a cylindrical cane of the premixed clay.
You can elongate the cane by rolling with your hands.
Cut the cane into five equal length pieces.
Place the pink cane pieces around a metallic blue clay as shown.
Fill the gaps with translucent clay strips.
Wrap the whole flower again with a thin sheet of translucent clay.
After rolling and elongating, the cane is ready… This cane is especially useful to cover glassware and create a candle holder. I will publish a candle holder made using this cane on another post.
