Flower cane and Bottle of hope- part 2

Here is the second part and it is continued from part one here http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/06/flower-cane-and-bottle-of-hope-part-1.html

You will need:



Violet Cernit- 1, 2.2 ounce packages
Opaque White Cernit- 2, 2.2 ounce packages
Black Cernit-1, 2.2 ounce packages
Yellow Cernit- 1. 2.2 ounce package
Porcelain White Cernit- large package 1.1 pound
Clay Machine
Clay Slicing Blade

Acrylic roller

Ruler

All links lead to my hubby's store www.clayfactory.net
Thank you so much for looking, we appreciate that. ;-D

Mix all of the colors, even the black and opaque white with an equal amount of porcelain white.

 

 

17.  Flatten the shaded coil that you made a little on the work surface by standing it on its flattest end. Cut through the length of the cane with you clay blade.

I stand over the top of the coil and watch as I cut down.

Leave the cane exactly this way after you remove the blade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 18. Make another cut in the top half of the cane, fan it out from the center of the last cut.

Leave the cane this way after removing the blade again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19. Make another cut in the lower half of the cane fanning it out from the center cut.


Remove the blade and leave the cane standing with the everything the way it was cut.

20. Roll out some of the black clay on the 5th thickest setting and make it a long sheet.

Trim off the leading edge for a straight edge.

Separate the bottom section of the cut cane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

21. Lay the cane section along the straight edge with the cut edge of the section facing down on the clay. Trim the black sheet to match the bottom section of purple shaded cane.

Place the cane section and the black sheet back together with the shaded coil exactly (or almost exactly) the way it came apart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22. Take the half section of the coil apart and place it on the black sheet cut face down on the sheet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

23. Trim the black sheet around the cane half.

24. Place the cane half back together with the black sheet in the center.
You do not have to smash these together now. You do not really have to touch the cane that much. Just place it back together and match top and bottom.

25. Remove the last section and place the cut edge on the black sheet and trim the black clay away from that section.

26. Place that section back together.

27. Place the shaded coil and its inserts on the black sheet of clay on the last trimmed edge and wrap the cane with that sheet.

28. Roll the leading cut edge over on the opposite edge of the sheet of black and gently make the mark. Roll the coil and the sheet back.

29. With your blade cut just inside the line you made with the leading edge.

30. Roll the coil up and the edges should meet almost perfectly.

31. Pinch a waist with your thumb and forefinger like we have already done on the African trade bead canes, you cane see them here
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/05/african-trade-beads-part-12-shinning_22.html


Turn and press all the way to the top of the cane from the middle section. Turn the cane over and press and rotate a little at a time to the top again until you have reduced the cane to half the diameter it was.

32. The cane section might be quite knobby, it is OK!

33. Start to roll the cane down with one hand and when it gets longer add both hands. Roll over 360 degrees and draw hands out gently away from each other. If you roll with short little movements you will place lumps in the coil. 360 and nice and smooth.

34. Roll down to a little over half-inch in diameter and cut in half with a rolling cut by roll the coil forward at the same time that you move the blade forward.

35. Your cane cut should look like this.

36. Cut off a 2" section of half of the cane.
Roll down section to 10".
Should be about 1/4" to 3/16" in diameter.

Cut in to 5- 2" sections.

37. This will look wrong because the section is bigger that yours will be. I made it that way so you could see it better.
Pinch the end of the cane section right where all the black lines meet.
Turn the can over and pinch the other end where the lines meet.

38. The pinches should line up. If they don't you rock the ends of the cane back and forth to line them up.

39. Like these do.
Pinch all the way down the edge of the cane to the other mark or pinch you made. If I do this I do not have to use registration marks on the outside of the cane. If when you roll your cane you flip it from end to end once in a while and roll on the other side too.

40. Place the sections together with the points in the middle forming a little well in the center as you go.

Place three together.

41. Like this!

42. Take a small amount of yellow and roll it in to a tiny coil, this one is less than an 1/8" in diameter. Place it in the center.

43. Place the other two petals in around the center and look at the end to move the petals around so they all come out from the center at the same distance and are uniform.

Take the ends of the coil with your fingers and rock the ends back and forth opposite from each other, to pull out the cane gently.

You can also run your fingers down the edges of the cane to move it down. This is very gentle and slow process that takes patience so not to smash the edges of the cane together. You place your fingers in to the dips in between the petals as you move down the cane.

  

44. If you cut the cane in the middle you will have a flower with out edges and is in the shape of a flower. Set this aside and we will add canes to the outside of another flower to fill it in also.

I use this flower just like this by taking slices off it with out having any background on it. The next flower will have a background and the two will be used together on a BOH (bottle of hope) along with just the petal slices too, Oh and some of the background canes too. You will see step by step... ;-D












Coming next part 3...
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/06/flower-cane-and-bottle-of-hope-part-3.html

Flower cane and Bottle of hope- part 1

I am going to start a new flower cane with a skinner shaded cane and the go to covering a Bottle of hope.
1st we will start with the shaded cane to make the flower.
You will see that when we build this it is pretty close to the African Trade bead canes but using Skinner shaded canes. This is a technique that Judith Skinner came up with to make our cane (or rod of clay) shade from one color to another. She, with this technique changed the Polymer clay world.


You will need:

Violet Cernit- 1, 2.2 ounce packages
Opaque White Cernit- 2, 2.2 ounce packages
Black Cernit-1, 2.2 ounce packages
Porcelain White Cernit- large package 1.1 pound
Clay Machine
Clay Slicing Blade
Acrylic roller
Ruler
All links lead to my hubby's store www.clayfactory.net
Thank you so much for looking, we appreciate that. ;-D
Mix all of the colors, even the black and opaque white with an equal amount of porcelain white.

1.   Roll out a sheet of the opaque white clay on the thickest setting in the clay machine and fold in half to double the thickness and the sheet. Cut the sheet so it is 2" high and the width of a 5 3/4" machine. If you have the longer machine you and use a 2"x 1" magnet to make the rollers small in width.

2.  Roll out a sheet of the violet and fold it in half to double the thickness of the sheet. Place the folded edge against the cut edge of the white. 
Trim off the right edge so it is straight up and down.

3. Trim off the top edge of the violet sheet to form and complete rectangle with the white sheet being half and the violet sheets being half.

4. 2" high by width of the clay machine and half white and half violet.
Roll these together with and acrylic roller.
Place the White side into your clay machine and roll through on the thickest setting.
Bring the clay out of the machine every time the same way and do not change directions ever.
When you get used to this you can play with flipping it around and not lose you way. I bring it out of the machine with my left hand and rotate my hand 1/4 to lay the sheet in front of me on my work surface.







5. I fold the sheet from left to right every time.

6. Always match the edges I am pointing to, not the top or what will be the top when you place this in the machine rollers.

7. Place the fold in to the rollers, see the top edges are not even and matching.
Roll through the machine on the thickest setting.
Bring it out the same way we did in step 6 and fold from the left to the right again always matching the side edges.
Place the fold in to the machine again on the thickest setting and roll through again.
Do steps 6 and 7 twenty more times.

8. The sheet will look like when it is blended completely.
Fold from left to right one more time and...

9. Turn the folded sheet up on the end and roll through the machine on the thickest setting.
Turn the dial down to the 5th thickest setting and roll the length through again to stretch out the length again.

10. You will have a long strip that goes from light to dark.

11. Trim off the light end of the strip for a straight edge. 

















12. Mix the cut off part until it is one color.

13. Roll the cut off mixed up part in to a coil that is the width of the long skinny sheet of white to violet. Place it on the sheet.

14. Roll up the coil and the sheet together.

15. Roll all the way up and roll on the work surface to smooth a little but not reduce.

16. This is what the end will look like and it will be light in the middle and darker on the outside.













Part 2 coming...
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2011/06/flower-cane-and-bottle-of-hope-part-2.html

Getting small

This is walking to the stand of flowers.

I like to get small and with a camera that is very easy to do.
I love to focus on the small aspects of life, the textures, and the subtle colors.
I love to use the pictures as components of my digital collages.
I was driving down the road the other day and there is a place where the volunteer honeysuckle is prolific and it is like walking or driving into a perfume shop. It is probably 30 feet long and 10 feet high.

The window was down and I got a whiff.

There is a smudge on my lens, I love this picture.

I have lived here for years and no one planted these, but my grandmother had some on the side of her house ages ago.

Smudge still there.

We get tons of things that grow from seed, from birds that sit on the wires and defecate. LOL!!!From piles of dung grow beautiful things.
I went back to the same spot with my camera and started taking photos of the area.
Smell-o-vision would be wonderful now.
But if you have ever been in a place where there is a ton of this flower it will bring back the fondness and the feel.
In smaller amounts of these flowers, I don't remember the fragrance being this strong.

I figured it out, I can see clearly now the smudge is gone!!!

This is a very close to the road. Eucalyptus seeds.

This is a flower (weed) in the hump in the middle of the road. It is about a 1/4" in diameter.