 Ms
Julie Downing, of the SDPCG showed us two ways to do Mokume Gane at our
monthly Clay Day at The Clay Factory last Saturday. I hadda play! I had
some sparkly scraps, some pearl clay and a couple of translucents, but
no foil, but I figured, what the heck.
So I rolled and cut and stacked. You all
know by now that I'm a Bottle of Hope addict, so what better way to play?
The clay was layered and stuck to the counter so I started poking holes
in it. The top layer was glittery blue and I wanted it to go through all
the layers.
Didn't poke hard enough so next time I'll
go almost to the bottom. The balls of clay beneath were made of the same
clay as the layers and I got a bright idea. What if I kept putting layers
underneath? So I pulled out the balls, made them into layers and put them
underneath. Now I didn't need anything underneath because the top layer
was
already patterned. Kewl! I'll call this
"Neverending Mokume Gane". I dunno if
anyone else has done it, but it's new to
me!
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So I looked for the next nekkid
bottle and started playing with that. This one's a biggie, about
6" tall with stopper. I figured that since I was experimenting, why not
make one for myself.
Now I was tired of rolling out clay, so
I got another bright idea. I cut the loaf in half and stacked one half
on top of the other. I had more than enough for the next bottle. |
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Last bottles, and I'm continuing
to 'speriment. I added a couple more thin layers of clay to top and bottom,
cut in half and stacked. This time, I used the wavy (ripple) blade and
cut from the top. First few were kind of raggeldy. So I took a couple of
slices from the side. I was finally starting to run out of clay, so I pinched
some off of some new blocks and stuck balls underneath. I finished this
one and rolled the scraps into balls, then into beads.
Ta da! |
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One of the craft shops had a sale on wooden
frames. I figured that I could afford to mess up a .75 frame, so here is
how I did it.
Again with the cane ends. After the demo
at the Del Mar Fair, I had
pieces-parts of canes to play with, but
not enough for a whole project. I cut most of them in half and reduced
and
recombined.
Brushed with Sobo, let dry, cane pieces
applied.
I started by putting three pieces of leaf
cane in each corner, along the miter. Then I moved to what I had eyeballed
to be the center of the sides and put a circular cane there. I did the
same thing at the top and bottom of the frame.
Maybe I can find a picture of the type of
wall that this reminds me of. If anyone has been to San Diego's Historical
Old Town, you have seen some of it.
There really is a lot of overlap with the
Granitex, so I will be sanding til Doomsday on this puppy.
Two things here:
-
If you leave the frame clay side down on the
warm (then cool) scanner overnight, it helps smooth out the clay.
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It also sticks to the scanner glass very nicely.
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