Polymer Clay Canes for Beginners

27 videos, step by step, beginner cane workshop beginner Cane Tutorial 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.

Online Workshops with Alice Stroppel

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[caption id="attachment_102" align="aligncenter" width="100" caption="Member IPCA"]Member IPCA[/caption]

Catching Up or What I’ve Been Up To

It’s been over a month since I’ve posted here on Polymer Clay Etc. and so much has happened. All good, exciting and fun.  You might have seen these images and heard all this before on Facebook etc. but this is for my friends who aren’t on those other social media sites.

First of all I had a private Pen and Ink workshop with Mary Jane Reinhart and she created a great bracelet that day. You should see the work she’s doing now, fabulous! Plus she’s so much fun, I love having her in the Studio.

Mary Jane Reinhart

eye - Mary Jane Reinhart

I was over the moon when I received the newest addition of Belle Armoire Jewelry magazine,  just before I left town for a retreat.

Belle Armoire Jewelry Magazine 

Laurie Prophater wrote a wonderful article about a challenge she proposed to Meisha Barbee, Julie Eakes and me when they were all staying at my house and playing at Studio 215 while Meisha was teaching. (Read about the fun we had here.) I’m thrilled to be published along with these talented women. Thank you Laurie for thinking of such a enjoyable project.

Next I met up with several claying friends in Denver, Syndee Holt, Julie Eakes, Meisha Barbee, Libby Mills, and Emily Levine, we had a great time.  Crazy but oh so much fun!

syndee, Julie, Meisha

 

Then it was on to the retreat where we exchanged bowls. 25 incredible bowls came home with me and this exchange started me on my bird obsession. I posted about my bird bowls and my larger bird wall piece here.

I came home with many wonderful things from an auction we have every year and I purchased some lovely pieces from my friends to sell at Studio 215 with more to come. I can wait to share some of them with you. I’ll be posting them on my Studio 215 blog and on my Studio 215 Facebook page. If you’d like to see what I’m up to at the Studio, sign up to receive a notice each time I post, my newsletter, and like my Facebook page.

I can be found on Instagram , Twitter,  and Tumbr too. Whew.

Last week I was featured by Cynthia Tinapple on Polymer Clay Daily  and that is always treat and a compliment. Thank you Cynthia.

I was featured with my newest face that I created for the auction at the retreat. I was flattered that there was many bids on it.

Alice Stroppel Face 8-15

I made this cool graphic using an app called Canva. My friend Meredith Arnold shared this with me and I can’t stop using it. Very cool, thanks Meredith.

Here’s another graphic made with Canva showing off my newest bird weed pot prototypes that I worked on while on retreat. I hope to get more of these done showcasing different critters and characters. I’m smiling and that is always my goal, to create things that make me smile.

Alice Stroppel bird weed pots

The beginning of September brought more laughter and fun at Studio 215 when several of my favorite people came to take a Profile Face cane class with me. We had a great time for sure.

Polymer clay face cane studio215--9-3-15

Dottie, Kathryn, Barbara, AnnaMarie, Majel, and Mary Jane are new converts to polymer and I believe they aren’t getting away without clay sticking in they brains. They’re having as much fun as I did with I first started, but they’re lucky to have others to share the experience. Thanks, ya’ll are making me so happy to see you having so much fun and making such cool things.

Then to top it all off, Kathryn Obidzinski has been my apprentice for several months now and before I went on retreat she started a palette knife polymer clay self portrait. I think she created a wonderful piece. I know she had fun, learned a lot and I hope I can reel her in to explore polymer clay a bit more.

Katherine-Obinzinski

 

I’m spending the rest of the day prepping for the Houston Polymer Clay Guild’s Lone Star Retreat. I’ll be teaching along with Randee Ketzel and Sarah Shriver. Next month it’s Sandy Camp in San Diego. Just too much fun!!!

 

Thanks for stopping in, Alice

 

 

Black and White

Black and white stool -Alice Stroppel

I drew this woman on canvas last June with the idea that I was going to frame her, she has been patiently wanting to become something. I found this perfect wooden stool at a garage sale this week-end, painted it black and now my girl has a home. I have several other pieces I’ve been working on and will be sharing soon.

She is going to be for sale and I’ll be telling you more about that by the end of the week. I have some exciting news to share and can’t wait for it to happen. See you a a day or two or three.

Sandy Camp and a New Scrap Technique

Portrait Alice Stroppel

I have a lot to do this week. I’m very excited to tell you that I am going to Sandy Camp in California next month. I’m going to be doing a demo. Thanks so much to the San Diego Polymer Clay guild and Nancy Ulrich for letting me join everyone this year.

I’m very excited to get to spend some time with my buddy Meisha Barbee. After all she’s kind of responsible for me deciding that the Stroppel Cane was worth sharing. Remember our collaboration featured on Polymer Clay Daily? Fun!

I’m spending some time making girlfriend bracelets to take along with me plus some other goodies.

But in-between I’m using scrap to create some fun pieces. Jainnie Jenkins named them Scappy girls. Love that, thanks Jainne.

Portrait Alice Stroppel polymer clay

 

The hair and clothes are mostly from scraps. I textured them, cured them, then stained the whole piece. Mounted it on mat board and then framed them.

So many ideas too little time.

I have a big silver project I’m working on too this month and it doesn’t even include this pile of silver I brought home after a thrift shop adventure that put me into overload. *g*.

silver

Wish me luck!

If you’re going to be at Sandy Camp, see you there.

Mystery Project


I’ve been having so much fun on Facebook with this project. I posted pictures of the first part of the project featuring six of my girls with the tag line, “Bet you can’t figure out what this is going to be”. So many of you had great guesses and wonderful compliments, I thank you so much for playing along because it made it that much easier for me to continue working on it until it was finished.

Alice Stroppel polymer clay table Alice Stroppel polymer clay table Alice Stroppel polymer clay table Alice Stroppel polymer clay table Alice Stroppel polymer clay table

As I continued to work and post pictures you continued to guess.

Alice Stroppel polymer clay table Alice Stroppel polymer clay table Alice Stroppel polymer clay table Alice Stroppel polymer clay table Alice Stroppel polymer clay table

It kept getting taller and taller. ……..

Alice Stroppel polymer clay table Alice Stroppel polymer clay table

……until I finally finished it and here is the big reveal…TADA…It’s a table.

Alice Stroppel polymer clay table

I found two base metal lamps at my local thrift  store and combined pieces from each to create this crazy table. It’s very sturdy and well weighted.  You might even classify this project a found object project.

I have a couple more lamps that I bought but they don’t come apart so I’ll see how they work out in the oven.

By the way, I bake in a full size oven that I have in my studio and it was easy to bake this table because is was in pieces. The next ones will be a challenge I think.

I cover a bit of each piece with clay and then bake it so I won’t mess up what I’ve just done. when it’s cool, I add more clay and bake again. I can do this as many times as I want and bake for as long as I want because I have calibrated my oven and I know that it is always on the correct temperature.

So what’s your next big project?

Alice Stroppel polymer clay table

Faces on Bracelets – Pen and Ink on Polymer Clay

 pen and ink on polymer - Alice StroppelI took time out from cane mapping to finish this face bracelet. It’s pen and ink on polymer clay. I’ve had the bracelet covered and baked for  months so it was about time I finished it.

Blowing in the Wind – A Polymer Clay Painting – How Photos Can Help with Corrections

 

I been having fun with these polymer painted faces. This one I stopped working on late one night. I was happy with it and took a picture before stopping for the night. I had already cured it in the oven and attached it to a peace of heavy water color paper. the bits of color in the background are bits of pc not watercolor.

The first photo shows this first edition. When I saw it the next morning, I laughed because I could see right away that she was missing the top of her head. Not enough height to her hair. I was tired the night before and didn’t want to make any more hair I guess. Another reason why stepping away from a project and coming back to it or even taking a photo of it is very helpful.

I often see things in photos of a piece that I just couldn’t see when I was working on it up close. It helps to step back from the work, but sometimes taking a photo is even better.

The second photo is where I noticed that her shirt was just wrong, not enough shoulder. I guess I was too focused on the hair to notice the shirt first time around.

This is also another vote for sketching before hand, I did sketch the face, but didn’t know I wanted the shirt until I was in the middle of it all. So I work both ways, planning and as I go.

The third photo is my final try. Quite a difference I think!

I figure I’m a work in progress more than than work. As always, thanks for stopping by.

Corrections to Blowing in the Wind

Abstract Faces

 

I’ve been working on a series of abstract faces using just polymer clay. It’s fun and kind of exciting to be venturing out into a different but same direction.

 Face - Alice Stroppel

Another face, this time using polymer as if it were very thick paint. Face - polymer clay

 

 

 

A Great Clay Day with Chrissie Baker

Chrissie Baker Alice Stroppel 2014

 

How lucky am I? Yet another day of playing with clay in my studio and this time with Chrissie Baker my internet clay buddy all the way from the UK. We made profile face canes and then created our bracelets.

Chrissie Baker Alice Stroppel profile Bracelets 2014

 

It was so  much fun, thank you Chrissie for wanting to spend the last day of your time in Florida with me. I hope you go home and get to work playing with clay. Canes can be fun, right?

And thank you too for this fun and funky crocheted vase your friend made, I love it. I’m thinking of adding some equally fun and funky pc flowers.

See you again soon Chrissie, I hope, if not in person, then here on the www.

gift from Chrissie Baker to Alice Stroppel

Disaster Averted – Mixed Media – Polymer Clay Table

polymer clay table top - Alice Stroppel

 

I’ve been working on the polymer clay cane mapped top of my little table off and on for days. Right now I’m not able to work days in a row, but can only get to my studio 3 or 4 days a week. So getting this piece finish it taking awhile.

I thought I might not share with you what happened, you know, admitting to a huge mistake and all, but then I decided that you might benefit from my lesson learned. Besides, (laughing) I was able to save it so I don’t look to stupid.

I’d already baked the top once with only the girls on the glass. See last post. I finished the background and cane slices and places it on the table top to see how it looked. I added some more cane circles and then baked it again.

top in progress - Alice Stroppel

 

I added my dot, dot, dot cane around two edges of the baked piece and then a row of black and white check. The reason I only did two ends was because my glass wasn’t big enough to do the other two sides.

I baked it again and I was very happy with the way it was coming along. Then…..DISASTER….I can’t show you pictures, because I had to work quickly to try and save the piece and all my work.

Here’s what happened. I removed the baked top from the glass and put it on a large ceramic tile that I work on. I thought, great, this is just the right size to finish the edges. I added more dot, dot, dot cane and checkered canes to the remaining two edges. I finished off with a larger dot, dot, dot cane.

Fabulous, now to bake it and see how it fits the top. I had planned to figure out the very edges once I could really see how much room I had left.

I considered using an extruded piece that I could bake and then glue in place. I received a new CZeXtruder from Kimberly Idalski and want to try it out on the edge. I’ll be posting more about using the new extruder in another post.

Well………..I put it in the oven, baked it the normal time, the buzzer went off, I opened the oven and the piece was a total mess! YIKES!

Buckling in the center and a couple of other places and so drastically the blonde girl had cracked right in two across the middle of her face and neck.  Circled in white in the picture below, this is after the fix and I’m still amazed a how well it turned out.

Alice Stroppel table close up

I won’t repeat what I thought and said in the minutes that followed……. but I was able to save the entire piece and honestly I still can’t believe it. I wish I had pictures of the before.

Here’s what I did to save the piece. At first I just used a towel to press the bulging clay gently back down. It seemed to help but it wasn’t enough and the pressure wasn’t even. The tile was still extremely hot. I used another tile the same size to place on top of the piece to apply even pressure. I first placed a piece of paper on top of the design, I didn’t want the second tile to create a shine.

I remove the tiles from the oven tray and onto a cooler surface, not a cold one, just cooler. When I had completely cooled I removed the top tile and paper and it had pretty much gone back into the original shape. You can imagine how relieved I was. I’ve ruined many things in my day, but this was the biggest, most time invested piece that I “almost” lost.

I glued it down quickly to my table top. The blonde girl was actually in three pieces, but I put her back together like a puzzle and glued all the pieces in place. You can barely see hair  line cracks and that my friends is the ONLY way you can tell the was a near disaster.

Now, there are two things that may have cause the buckling. At first I thought it might have been because I moved the rack up one level, I wanted to bake another piece at the same time and that put the whole thing closer to the top of the oven, you know, heat rises. And that may well have contributed, but this morning I really think the main problem is that it was on the large tile. I actually had the tile at an angle in a broiler pan and air could get underneath it. But the tile was very hot and I think the glass must not get as hot or maybe not hold the heat as well.

Alicestroppeltabletop1w

I bake in a regular home oven, by the way.

Whatever the reason, I will stick to baking my cane mapped pieces on glass and I won’t move away from the center of my oven.

Here’s the finished top, whew is all I can say. I’m still not sure about the very edges and I want to add more slices to the leg etc. More when I can….

Old Things New Again – WIP

Table with polymerThis is a silly little table that my husband and I used as a telephone table when we were first married. Most of you can relate to a telephone table, but some of you may not remember a time when you had an actual phone connected to the wall.

We had a cord that could reach all the way into the living room. That was the only way you could talk for more than 5 minutes, I could cook, fold clothes, and watch the kids playing.

When we moved to our new house we didn’t need the table anymore. My Mother, Father, sister and brother-in-law bought a three story victorian house together and they had tons of room. The table went to stay with them and now it’s come back to live with me.

I’ve painted it lots of fun colors and have covered the bottom shelf in polymer clay with one of my faces and some of my colorful canes.  I’m starting to work on the top when I have time and I’ll also be adding bits of PC on the legs.

Table with polymer - Alice Stroppel

It’s a piece that has been touched by every member of my family at one time or the other. No hurry on this piece it’s just something that will capture a lovely memory in time and link it to the present.