27 videos, step by step, beginner cane workshop
What people are saying about this tutorial.
jennifer rose
Just finished this first workshop on how to make canes, and I must say I learned so much. This is exactly what I have been looking for, someone who could explain cane making in a step by step that process that I could replicate. I watched the videos, went into my studio and began to create all of the canes Alice showed. I finally have results I can be proud of, and I say thank you so much for doing this workshop. My only question now is when do we get more workshops. If you are only going to take one online class let it be this workshop. Thank you Alice for your hard work, and your dedication to helping others learn the joys of polymer clay.
Carole, Ellyn, Charlene, Sydney, Tyra, Marty, Terri, Vicky, Pat, Karen
It was a hot day in Central Florida, but we had enough fun to make up for it. This was a great group of woman who created some fabulous work. I’m always inspired by the diversity of the pieces. Even though we all start at the same place we end up with such different creations, it’s a joy to witness.
Most of these shape were created with Barbara McGuire’s Antique Door Plate stamps. You can purchase them from me, just leave a comment on this post if you’re interested.
Here are the works of art in the order of the stairs ….. pendants first.
Carole
Carole wanted a blue surround and made quick work of putting together blue canes for her soulful girl. Love her eyes.
Ellyn
Ellyn and I are on the same wave length, I love mermaids and this one is going to be such fun to wear.
Charlene
Charlene freehanded this cool ribbon cat and step away from the rest of the group with a gold surround for her face. Charlene is President of the Orlando Area Polymer Clay Guild that sponsors the Fandango retreat. You should think about attending next year.
Sydney
Okay, so Sydney just kept adding until hers is now too big to wear and is going to grace the front of a journal. A mixture of canes and ink and markers, can you tell which is which? Can’t wait to see the finished piece. Sydney is involved in the Florida Gulf coast Polymer Clay Guild, if you live in that area you should check it out.
Tyra
Tyra created her own drawing of this interesting mythical character and we were all impressed. Lots of wonderful detail.
Marty
Marty kept saying she couldn’t draw and didn’t like her pendant at first, but by the end of the class she walked out with it around her neck. I think she was mistaken about the drawing part.
I don’t have a pendant picture for Terri. Terri, if you have a picture send it to me….. please.
Vicky
Vicky created these fabulous faces on her own shapes. I just love the colors and her imagination. Vicky has a website with more of her beautiful work displayed.
Pat
Pat outlined her face in red, a great accent against the black. Fun! Love those lips.
Karen
Now Karen’s face is right up my alley too. It’s strange and funky, and yes very cool, I love that.
Terri
Terri created this sweet girl and used her imagination to cover a mistake in coloring. I know she’s going to love wearing this bracelet.
Carole
Carole combined the pen and ink with a hair cane to come up with this unique bracelet. There is three different faces, it’s really cool.
Ellyn
Ellyn has three faces on her bracelet as well. I love the softness of this face and the coloring of the hair. She emailed me the next day saying she wore it home and it made her smile. YES!!! that’s my goal, so mission accomplished.
I’m busy making samples for my classes and drew the faces in the video to go with Barbara McQuire’s stamps. Yesterday I wanted to see they might look on a bracelet.
I decided to show you this new bracelet in a video because it’s hard to capture the look in still photos. The face patterns will be available for purchase next week sometime. I’ll post more about them when I’ve added them to my Etsy Shop.
I’m excited to tell you that I’ll be teaching two 1 day workshops at Mount Dora Center for the Arts in Mount Dora, FL in October 15th, Pen and Ink and November 12th, Cane Mapping, details to come.
This morning I started to do samples of what we are going to be doing in class on Saturday but I ended up drawing a grown up Red Ridding Hood. Grown up you might ask, well the story goes that the wolf died and she lived to grow up right? So here she is, with a silver frame ready for the eye pin and a chain.
Okay so the truth is the hood just showed up by itself and I colored it red. I use photos or pictures as my guides, but I don’t sketch out my work ahead of time. I just dive right in and begin and correct as I go letting the piece create itself.
That’s why I like working with polymer clay as a base and my pen and ink technique, I can easily correct most lines and sometimes colors. I do most of the black work first and add color at the end, then reapply black here and there.
I probably would benefit from more planning including sketching the ideas in my head instead of just making notes, but then I’m not so sure how things like the red hood would ever happen. But it’s something to consider.
International Polymer Clay Association’s Polymergence editor Suzanne Ivester wrote a wonderful article in this month’s newsletter entitled All About Sketching! It’s an interesting read, you’ll enjoy it.
This cat just called to me, no explanations, no excuses. I’m going to post this and get back to my original plan..samples…step by step samples.
I sold the last of my girlfriend galore bracelets at Fandango and needed to make more and here’s the new gaggle of girlfriends.
I was honored to be asked to donated something to the International Polymer Clay Association retreat this year and I’m sending one of these cuffs. I only wish I could go this year. I would love to meet all the other wonderful clayers that are going to be there. Maybe next time.
I’ve also made the largest GG bracelet yet, showing in the photo above are all sides of this 1 1/2″ wide cuff. It really looks great on a large girl like me. This bracelet is listed in myEtsy Shop.
It’s hard for me to decide which size I like the best, I like them all I guess. Someday I have to save one for myself. Maybe it’s one of these because I’ve used the last of at least one of my face canes and so these really represent my faces over the last few years. Kind of a road map of my journey.
The next group of bracelets will be welcoming some new faces because I’ll be making more this month. I can’t wait to see the new personalities that show up. That’s really how I feel about my face canes, each one kind of decides who they are going to be and sometimes I don’t have alot of say in the matter. Kind of fun.
I wasn’t able to take Maureen Carlson’s class at Fandango. Everyone was making these fabulous necklaces with What a Character® mold from Maureen. I couldn’t resist and came home with a couple. I’m busy making more Girlfriends Galore bracelets because they are all gone, but I just had to play with the molds……… so what did I make but a bracelet of course.
I usually do my own faces, but I just wanted to play with these. Actually I wanted the little stamps embellishments all around the faces as much as anything. They are really just so cool.
This is a WIP but I just want to let you know I am at my clay table working er …..playing……away. So if you see this Maureen, I’m not finished yet.
My class here in my studio is full and I’m looking forward to a great day. If you are interested in taking a class with me, leave a comment or email me at alice@polymerclayetc.com and let me know. I’m going to be having at least one class a month including my Full Face Cane class the last of July. As I said, I only have room for 8 or 9 so be sure to let me know if you’re interested.
I decided to do a couple more girls on bracelets yesterday. This picture shows each side of one bracelet and on the right side of the picture, all of the side put together to show what it might look like if it were a flat drawing.
I just received an package in the mail containing a large set of markers and couldn’t wait to try them out. In fact, I’ll be doing more experimenting today.
I’ve always been the kind of person that has to have every color of……well…..whatever I’m interested in at the time. I own every color of embroidery floss from years ago, every color of premo, every color of crayon (just because I love the smell) and I’m sure I’ve thrown away more supplies because I bought every color and then didn’t use them before they dried up.
But I’m not a clothes horse, I don’t have a million pair of shoes, but I probably have a million different kinds of supplies. They make me happy, they make me feel like I could at anytime create something wonderful because I have everything I could ever need to create anything. Okay, that’s not really true, I don’t have ALL the supplies in the world, but I’m working on it.
These bracelets are really fun to wear because from the front, when it’s on your wrist, a person can’t really tell what it is. It just looks like an interesting, colorful bracelet. But then they say something about it and you show them the whole drawing, they are amazed. It’s pretty cool actually.
Then when you tell them it’s polymer clay, pen and ink, they want to know more. Mostly they say they can’t draw and could never do it. It’s really not true, everyone can draw something even it it’s just shapes and trust me shapes can be very interesting. But these girls are very basic line drawings.
Anyway, this is the face for the second bracelet. They will both be for sale in my Etsy Shop by the end of the day. Thanks for checking in.
I finished these Girlfriend Galore bracelets yesterday and popped them in to cure last night. Spent the morning taking pictures and cropping etc., loading two of them on my Etsy site and flickr, and now here. Yikes. It’s 2pm and I’d rather be claying……
But that’s the way it is and I guess I just need to get over it. But I am glad to be using backgrounds instead of cutting each item out in Photoshop. My printer has gotten a bit sad and I’ve just ordered a new laser printer. I’ve wanted one for years and could never justify the expense when I had a perfectly good inkjet sitting right here.
But to tell you the truth, this “free” printer really costs more to operate because of the ink. Anyway, I’m waiting for it now and I can’t wait to print all those background with the laser.
Anyway, back to the “girlfriends”. I’ve listed two of these bracelets in my Etsy shop. The wider one below……
I made one of these to go to the auction at Orlando Area Polymer Clay Guild’s Fandango coming up in May. It’s a super fun event and if your thinking about going…..stop thinking….just go, you’ll love it. Beautiful place, beautiful weather, beautiful people. Check it out on their website here.
What are you working on? Thanks for stopping by today.
I just keep coming back to Alice and the poor flamingo from time to time over the years and here I am again. I really, really enjoyed this one. Fun, fun.
I loved the colors and drawing the skirt. My sister drew herself a set of paper dolls and clothes when I was just a little girl. They had lots of folds and shading and I just loved them. I thought they were the prettiest things in the world.
I always wanted to draw like her and of course my Dad. I didn’t really ever try to draw until a couple of years ago. And because I didn’t get instant wonderful results, I would give up. Then I’d come back again and again until I feel like I would wear these, so maybe someone else will like them too.
I want to thank all those customers that have purchased one of my bracelets from my Etsy Shop, or told me you liked them, either here or on Facebook or Flickr. It encourages me to make more, not to mention makes me smile from ear to ear.
This is another of my “face bracelets” I had lots of fun with this one too. Okay what don’t I have fun doing???? Not much if it is with clay or creating of any kind.
Gotta have the lips, lol……………
And the colorful eye………Both of these bracelets are for sale in my Etsy Shop, thanks for taking the time to stop by.
Here’s another of my pen and ink and polymer clay bracelets. This one has five panels and no canes, so there are more pen and ink drawings than usual. I’m crazy about animal prints. I keep waiting for them to go out of style, but it doesn’t ever seem to happen. I had fun with the Lady in Blue and decided to add color to this girls too.
She has her leopard shoes and purse and a zebra scarf in her hair, she’s ready to go to your house. *g*.
Visit my Etsy shop for this and more crazy, funky pieces of artwork to wear…or just hang around here and watch some videos…..
Comments