Early HANGAs - trial

Here are a couple of trial HANGAs, made just as brooches, as I am waiting for my 2 way brooch pin/bail findings to arrive. I am still working on perfecting the construction, particularly the way I finish the backs.

And another HANGA made from the black and white Klimt-style canes I made recently.

More experiments with Klimt-style canes

In order to try and understand how to predict the outcome when creating Klimt-style canes, I have recently been making some with just black and white clay and some with black, white and grey/silver.

Just using black and white discs of clay, here some of the same colours are placed next to each other and the ordering was done in a repeating pattern

The resulting Klimt-style cane made from the log of discs above

This cane was made with a random placing of black and white discs, rather than in a repeating pattern

This cane included grey and silver as well as black and white clay

I have noticed that the first colour used when creating the log of different coloured discs, tends to predominate throughout the cane, so in future I will start with a light colour, as this last cane appears very grey. 

A Review of August 2010

August has been a very interesting and varied month, starting with my first time at Coatesville Market, right at the beginning of the month. Since then I have been working on various ideas and still trying out new techniques. I have got totally addicted to creating Klimt style canes and have been concentrating more on making lower cost items, for the markets and events that will be leading up to Christmas.

It may have been fortunate that I did not have time to finish the construction of all my new display screens, last month, because I may need to change my table set-up again, as a result of future developments. There will be a major life change for me in a couple of months time – see the next post.

Klimt style brooches, stick pins and mini pins

Here are my first six finished Klimt style brooches. To see individual photos of each brooch, go to the 'Sample Brooches' tab on www.art-brooches.co.nz. The middle brooch on the bottom row is a prototype, designed to hang reading glasses from.

I have also been busy making lots of Mini Pins and Stick Pins for my forthcoming events. Several people asked if I made stick pins, when I was at Coatesville Market, so I thought I would try them out.

Mini Pins

Stick Pins

This coming weekend is going to be a busy one, with Browns Bay Craft Show on Saturday 4th and Coatesville Market on Sunday 5th September (luckily, I have now managed to get a covered spot for this one).

Klimt style brooches, cabochons and other bits

Sheet made from Klimt style cane slices

I have got totally addicted to making these Klimt style canes. Above is a sheet created from several slices from one of the canes, rolled onto a thin sheet of polymer clay. The squares have distorted slightly, as I have not rolled evenly in all directions but I think this looks more interesting than if they were exactly straight. The photo below shows the beginnings of some brooches that I am making with slices from the canes I made earlier in the week.

Klimt style brooches in progress

I have started to make cabochons with the off-cuts that are big enough. I intend to source some tie-tack pins and stick pins that I can attach to these cabochons, so I have some much smaller items to sell at my next event.

Cabochons

I wondered if this technique would work with circles as well as squares - and it does. Unfortunately, I reshaped my circular pieces before I took a photo. Here are a couple more of photos of miscellaneous bits.

Skinner Blend and bits of canes

Experimenting with cane reduction and re-shaping

I  have also been working on a couple of brooch designs, starting with imprints from some rubber stamps I bought from Montarga. The colour is just Pearl-Ex powders and I draped the stamped clay over some rolled up baking parchment, to give them some dimension, before baking. I was going to try out the idea of incorporating a metal loop into the design, for hanging reading glasses on, but these look so delicate that I am not sure whether to do this now.

Butterfly and leaf brooches in progess

As you can see I have had great fun this weekend!

Klimt style canes

Yesterday evening I decided to try this technique from Donna Kato’s book ‘The Art of Polymer Clay Millefiori Techniques’, with all the little balls of left over colours from my previous colour mixing exercise. The above photo shows four different canes that I made yesterday and tonight. I am so hooked, I cannot stop! It is so fascinating, as you just do not know how the cross-sections are going to turn out from the pieces that go into the extruder gun. I cannot wait to make some brooches with slices from these canes.

My first ‘ghost’ canes

Caning was something that never really appealed to me (probably because I thought they were just used for making beads), until I saw some beautiful examples of work on the internet, where thin slices from canes had been placed in over-lapping layers – this really appealed to me, so I thought I would give it a try. For my first attempt, I chose to try making ‘ghost’ canes using translucent polymer clay, as I wanted to see how this would look if I rolled it into a coloured clay base.

I made a ‘jellyroll’ cane with white and translucent pc and a simple flower cane with a 50/50 mix of white/pearl and translucent pc. Here is a slice of each of my first canes – I think they are not bad for a first attempt.



Had to keep putting the canes in the fridge because the weather is quite warm at the moment and I noticed that they soon became quite soft on handling, which made them harder to slice. I am not too concerned at them looking perfect, as they will get distorted when I roll them into the surface of the coloured clay.



I just put thin slices on the surface of the pink tile (so the pieces are raised), as this tile had already been baked. I think they look better when they are rolled flush into the surface, as in the blue-green tiles. The pasta machine greatly distorts the shape of the cane, which creates some interesting if unexpected results. Carefully pressing with a roller, equally in all directions, helps to keep the original shape. I will need to practice more to get the really layered effect I am thinking of.