Polymer Clay Canes for Beginners 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.
Online Workshops with Alice Stroppel
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The next class in my studio will this month, July 30, 2011. We’ll be using up your old canes and creating some very cool fish.
I’m using fish as the subject, but you could cane map almost anything. I’ll be showing you a couple of other cane mapped items in the next few days. The photo above shows one crazy fantasy fish that I applied to this cute little tea pot. Fun! Here’s a close up. It’s only about 3″ square.
The Class is $55.00 and that will include lunch and Foam core for mounting your finished fish and cording or pin back to finish your small fish. Plus…I’ll add a bit of metal foil to add the pop need to create a fantasy fish.
Click here for all the information. Hope to see you here,
Alice
I’m trying other ways to display the fish that I shared with you the other day. I still like the black background so I decided to see how a lone fish would look in a square frame. I can see a group of these on the wall. I like this as well as the larger grouping.
Still, nothing is permanent yet, plus I used very small glue dots to hold the pieces in place. They are used in scrapbooking and it only takes one or two to hold each item and I can easily remove the polymer piece if I want to. They will mess up your background though so keep that in mind.
This is a 9″ x 9″ frame and the fish is only about 3 1/2″ from lips to tail, so you could use several in a grouping.
This is kind of my finished fish piece. Kind of…..I’m still playing with it and not sure I like everything about it and might do something different with the flower stems. The metal leaf was left over from the fish and I thought I try it as stems. It wasn’t what I had in mind and I’m not sure I won’t try my original idea after all.
I haven’t glued the pieces down yet, I had a black background in mind, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t want to try to do the background in polymer, so if I want a different background I have to think of something else. I’m not much of a painter, but I’m thinking of painting a lighter background on board. Plus I’m still arranging and rearranging each piece and wondering if I need more fish.
I might have to let this percolate for awhile, but hopefully not too long. I like to finish projects and get them either out the door on the way to a new home, or among my many polymer clay keepers.
Anyway, it was fun and if nothing else I’ve added metal foils to my cane mapping techniques and I’m ready to see what else I can do with it besides fish………love fish but……. well you understand I’m sure.
I’ve been working on more fish and some other fantasy flowers for my WIP but it’s not finished yet, so I thought I’d share these fish today.
I find that I am using more and more of those little canes I made from scraps of other canes like the ones I show you in my video Don’t Waste That Little Bit of Skinner Blend. In fact while I’m doing these fish, I am making more little canes to use. It’s just plain fun because nothing has to be perfect and you kind of create as you go.
I usually create that way, just begin and see what come from it. Some days I like to just mix colors and have them ready for making a series of canes that coordinate. Other days I like to make skinner blends for the same reason. It makes creating a project so much easier, working flows easily when you have canes made up but also when you have bits of left over colors from your canes so you can make quick little matching canes to accent a piece.
I’ll try to post a picture of the flowers tomorrow. Hopefully I can finish the whole picture by then, maybe!
These fish with their own bling are a part of a WIP, but I wanted to share them with you today because I am excited about how they look.
It’s one of those slap myself on the forehead moments…ever since I attended a class with Kathleen Dustin, I’ve had every color of Gilding Material, gold leaf, variegated blue leaf, red variegated and silver too. This class was years ago maybe 2005, can’t remember. Anyway I made a few thing using the techniques I learned in her class and then move to other things.
This metal leaf has just been patiently waiting for me to remember it. Today, 6? years later I incorporated it in these cane mapped mosaic fish. You can learn the basic mosaic technique by signing up for my newsletter in the upper right hand side of this page.
I’ve been framing some of the other fish that I’ve done for my classes and I wanted to create a large piece that contains several fish and other subjects. So I’m not finished yet, this has exploded me into a whole different group of ideas. Like I need anymore to add to the ones I haven’t gotten to yet. But maybe I’ll add some of these to the front of the list.
It’s so great to be able to share what I’m doing each day. I know there is someone out there checking in once in awhile, thanks……….
I ‘ve been doing lots of new pieces involving the mosaic technique that I share with you when you sign up for my newsletter. I’ve made this fish and placed it on the underside of a 6×6 plate. It will make a perfect desert plate or a catch all for a dresser.
I have other things I’m working on that I want to share with you soon. Just wanted you to know I’m busy working at my clay table.
Patricia from artistsloftppaquin1 featured one of my mosaic fish in a treasury call, “Sun, Sand and Sea….More Tropical Dreaming”.
I made this fish with the same technique that I used to make the larger fish to your right here on my home page, only this one is small. You can make your own fish mosaic by watching a 20 minute video when you sign up for my newsletter.
Patricia makes the coolest pieces in ceramics. I own a couple of her faces and she owns my eyes and lips necklace. You should take some time to visit her shop, you”ll love it.
Thanks Patricia.
I started out yesterday to continue to list more items in my Etsy Shop, but ended up here instead. I had this idea…..I know, so what else is new? I’ve been wanting to make larger items to hang on the wall for quite some time. The clay part of this one is 8″x 10″
It was another one of my wild ideas that turned into The Most Fun. I find that when I let go of the goal of making something to sell, I enjoy myself so much it makes me laugh out loud and realize that I should Never, Ever, Worry about sales. There are many things that I would do differently, but I learned alot and had a ball.
But taking sales out of the equation is a hard thing to do since it’s what I’ve done all my life. And now is really no different, I have to sell things, it’s just the way it is.
I’ve always known that letting go is the best way to create, I just have to keep remembering it. This one was for me…..however, I was thinking about turning this into a greeting card…….(grinning here) ……….. what do ya’ think?
 Polymer Clay Fish Bracelet I used the same canes to create this bracelet that I used on my mermaid in the last post. And again, I layered the cane slices instead of butting them side by side as in the video. However, I did draw a pattern and built the fish first before putting it on the bracelet.
 Laying Out The Design You can just see the pattern between the two fish. I’m fitting the fish on a piece of glass. To see my video that explains how to use a pattern and a piece of glass, just sign up for my newsletter. It’s free.
 Bracelet Covered With Black Polymer Clay I covered a bracelet with black clay, then laid my fish on top. I made sure everything was securely down and baked it.
 Side View of Fish Bracelet Notice the tail on this fish, there is another slice of this cane on the other side. In fact, these are the last two slices of the cane. In the last post I told you that this cane was made from left overs and I was only able to get 6 slices out of it. Four I used for my mermaid’s hat and these two for fish tails. I didn’t waste that little bit of Skinner Blend.
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