I am a subscriber of Meg Newberg's tutorials. They are extremely well written and she keeps coming up with such novel and beautiful ideas! I wanted to try her latest, which looks like beveled glass....if you join this month you'll get the issue for $5...if you wait the price goes up for individual back issues. (As always, I do not receive any money from mentioning other artists. I am just informing you what I like!) Here is a link to her Etsy site. You really should go visit and see her wonderful tutorials! They are unlike any I've seen! Very talented lady.
Anyway, the cane in the latest issue comes out shaped like a six pointed star, so I decided to try a technique I read about on the internet where you use Playdough to wrap your clay before reducing odd shaped canes. Supposedly it peels right off afterwards. I decided to give it a try so I wouldn't deform my hard work! This is not an easy cane to make or reduce!
I haven't used this stuff since I was six! It seems better than it was back then...it doesn't have that odor we all remember anymore! :) It always smelled toxic to me, although it was supposed to be safe. I guess it was okay since I'm still here! The formula they use now seems smoother, as well, rather slippery and better than it was when I was little.
This picture shows my cane covered in a thin layer of pink Playdough. It is very soft so it can't be used alone. I rolled it out by hand and maybe I should have made it thinner.
Then I filled in the low spots with triangles of red scrap polymer clay I had already open and conditioned. I believe all the polymer here is Primo.
Then I covered the whole thing in another sheet of the red scrap. The idea is that the Playdough peels off the cane cleanly and the extra red I added helps it keep its shape while reducing....Since your cane is now round, you can do a bit of rolling to reduce it. Much easier to reduce than a six pointed star!
Then, my usual technique is to attach the ends to either a lucite block for stamping (couldn't find it for the pic) or a piece of plastic....this one is one I cut off from the package eraser clay packs comes in. I have already started reducing it in this photo. As you can see, the soft Playdough squished out and made a big mess. If my beginning layer of it was thinner, it might not have gotten so icky. :) Another tip that works very well is to add some scrap clay to the end of your cane before reducing. Then you don't lose so much of your "good" cane. I didn't do it, in this case.
I did not take a photo of the results because I didn't want anyone to lose their lunch....It was ugly. The Playdough did NOT peel off easily, as I was told! I ended up peeling what I could of the scrap red off, then as much of the icky Playdough off both the cane and the scrap clay, and gently washing off the rest. It DID work, but it wasn't what I had hoped for....It was messy and nasty once it got wet....but it did all rinse off after a bit of soaking in warm water. If you try this, I suggest you make your cane as smooth as possible before putting on the layer of Playdough...it wants to get in any crevices and stick. A toothbrush got it out though. If you baked it with some on the outside, I am sure it would just dry out and fall off.. So, your mileage may vary. Will I do this again? Maybe. It DID work, and Playdough is cheap.
Not really sure about how this cane came out but it was my first attempt. We are our own worst critics, though...we see every mistake glaring like the sun! I'll still probably make something out of it...hardly ever any waste in polymer clay! Hope you enjoyed my experiment and come back and see what else I'm up to soon!
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