Orchid experiment

Taking the petal idea further, I was really driven by the idea of making something of my own design. The basic ingredients were there, I had already crafted the petal cane (see my last post) but just slicing these off and placing them onto the base bead to form a vaguely flower shape just didn't seem enough. I was on a roll and didn't want to stop. So with petal cane still intact I decided to experiment further.

My inspiration was a pink orchid, which sits in my lounge, and has surprisingly flowered after a couple of years of lifelessness. Taking the petal cane I started building my orchid cane by attempting to mould the shape of the petals into the orchid petal shape, cutting the cane in half and combining to form a vaguely cane like shape around a small white core. Adding some tiny rolls of white clay in between the petal canes helps plugs the gaps. Then I trimmed the ends off so that all pieces were the same length. The final part of the process was to wrap the cane in a layer of white clay to keep it together. After some further rolling and reducing, you can see how it turned out.

Well, OK it's not how I imagined it, but at the same time, it's not a complete disaster. But seeing how this was built taught me a few things about caning. Firstly, the design wasn't properly defined. I kind of rushed into it, and built it on a wing and a prayer. So the point is that I didn't plan it very well to start with. I only had the petal canes I started with in the last post, and a few bits left over. As a result the cane wasn't nearly large enough to define the design and I should really have used more colours and layers to better define the borders between the petals, because it resulted in much of the colour being merged in the reduction process. Also the petals have sort of lost their shape at the ends and this is down to the layer of white clay around the edges. For one, the layer of white clay was too thick.

On the positive side you can still see the veining in the petals, but I think I will spend more time learning the basics of creating different pictures within canes before I move on further.

Petals

I spotted this technique of creating petals in the same book. It basically takes the process of the skinner blend to the next level. Again I chose white and cherry red clay to create the blend. The instructions are fairly straightforward: create the cane and then slice along the length so you have dissected the cane into quarter lengths. You then squeeze and shape the cane into a petal shape and cut in half. By combining the pieces side by side, and recutting the cane in half, the result is a more detailed veining of the petal, as you can just about see in the core of the cane on the left of the photo.

It's odd how as you layer the canes side by side you would think it's not going to work. It's only when you cut through the core that you see it has been a success. And with surprisingly little effort, I think this gives a real sense of achievement. The design can then be sliced off to create a flower design on a base bead.

The real problem I am finding at the moment is cross-contamination of colour, particularly with very strong colours, such as this cherry red. I have noticed that when creating the skinner blend my white clay doesnt stay white for very long, as it gets contaminated from rolling through the pasta machine, from residue off the rolling pin and of course from my fingers. The key to all this of course is using handwipes to clean the tools in between colours, but I have to admit that due to lack of patience and sheer laziness I have lapsed somewhat in this aspect.

Fortunately the whole process has made me realise just how forgiving the clay really is. You can in fact get away with making a skinner blend out of not-so-white clay, streaked with bits and still get good results. These blemishes seem to get lost in the process. And you can always of course right wrongs by adding a little bit extra to hide mistakes.