Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Flower Bracelet, Lilian Nichols's Polymer Clay Class

For the past few months Lilian has been showing us a variety of ways of making flower canes.  I have been scurrying the whole class just to keep up, scurrying so fast I haven't had time to take photos of the steps and of my classmates' work. 

We made several different styles of flowers from bull'seye canes. 

We started with the bull's eye cane similar to the ones at the top of the picture, shaping them as we worked toward a finished flower.  The final product at the bottom was filled in with translucent clay between the petals and then around the entire cane.



Below is the set of flowers I made. Three of the flowers were made with  bull'seyes, the two already shown in the first photo and the five petal veined pink flower.  The three roses are variations of a rose cane technique Lilian showed us.  The yellow and green flower is an experiment and so is the viertically striped leaf.  Lilian showed us how to make the leaf with the center vein and side veins. 


Members of the class shared their canes.  Here are the ones others shared with me.



I rolled out a background of turquoise.  The turquoise was deeper than I wanted so I added white to it.


I decided to experiment with the extruder.


I extruded a thin rope, then flattened it into the background.


Gradually, I flattened thin slices of cane into the background.  The design is still in process in this picture.

These are the flowers that I used.  The purple tipped flower with the   multiple veins was one of those given to me.  It gave a little punch to the similar colors of the other canes.

                 

Lilian gave us cuff bracelet forms that she are scrubbed and covered with a light layer of Elmer's glue.  The glue was dry when we pressed on our clay sheet.


I cut a seven inch by 1 and1/2 inch slice across the bottom of my polymer sheet and attached it to the form.  A strip of clay close to the original background color covered the inside of the bracelet.


I baked it in my kitchen oven and here is the result.  It still needs to be sanded so it is smoother to the touch.

1 comment:

  1. Beautiful! I am sure I would love doing that..but no one in this area does it..yet. Just what I need another hobby..but think of the Christmas Ornaments I could create:)

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