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
[caption id="attachment_102" align="aligncenter" width="100" caption="Member IPCA"]  [/caption]
|
 IPCA International Polymer Clay Nov. – Dec. 2015 I am honored to be the featured artist in the Nov. – Dec. International Polymer Clay Publication. I was interviewed and more of my work can be seen inside.
I’m humbled by the polymer talent around the world and feel extremely fortunate when I’m asked to be included in that family.
Many thanks to Corliss Rose and the International Polymer Clay Association.
Are you a member? If not, I suggest you take a minute to look at everything this organization has to offer. Here’s their membership page.
Even if you are not a member, you can still get a free copy of the publication. Just email editor@theipca.org and they will send you the e-publication.
I was so happy that my “Alice in Wonderland” tea set was featured on Polymer Clay Daily in the beginning of this month. But I was upset with myself that I haven’t finished it. I’d been working on it since before Christmas, but I bought my Studio and have been busy with all that brings with it.
Thanks to Cynthia Tinapple and PCD I’ve finished most of the characters. It will always be a work in progress I think. but here’s a look at it as it is now. I hope you enjoy it and get a smile or two.
You can see the tea set in person at Alice Stroppel’s Studio 215 in Sebring FL .
you can get more information about Studio 215, classes and items for sale at the Studio’s blog. while you’re there, sign up for my newsletter, you’ll be the first to know what classes are being offered and what exciting instructors are coming to teach.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/abmSD5MmQBM[/youtube]
*********************
‘One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.’
‘One side of what? The other side of what?’ thought Alice to herself.
‘Of the mushroom,’ said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
I’ve finally had time to working a bit more on my Alice in Wonderland tea set and I’ve added the caterpillar with his hookah. There are so many more characters I want to add to the set so I need to get busy. 
The reason I’ve been too busy to work on Alice and her friends is that I took a trip to SanDiego to attend Sandy Camp (a well established polymer clay retreat) and to visit my friend Meisha Barbee. What fun I had and what a great group of clayers there are in California. More about that in my next post.
Character for this side?… maybe the Dormouse and the rabbit that was at the tea party.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
As you can see I’ve been working on Alice herself and here she is with the Mad Hatter. You’ll notice that I’ve moved the hatter and here’s why.
The other night after my post here and on Facebook, Ellen Prophater call me to share her thoughts on how to adhere my figures to the silver teapot. Thanks so much Ellen it’s nice to have a friend looking out for you. She suggested I use Genesis Artist Colors Thick Medium-Extender. She uses it all the time and with great success.
Oh course I have some, I bought it from her, naturally. Elleen and Sue Sutherland own Creative Journey Studio and carry almost everything you might want or need for claying. I’ve actually used it once or twice but didn’t really like the consistency of it and put it aside. But to be fair I didn’t use it long enough to really judge but it’s hard to spread.
And she’s right, super glue was not a good choice for this project so I popped the Hatter off the teapot and reattached him using Genesis, it worked very well. At least the bond is strong and solid.
Now you’re going to laugh, I had to tie the Hatter to the pot.
I told you that you were going to laugh.
Because of the dip in the teapot the Mad Hatter just didn’t want to stay in place. With Genesis on his back he just slid all around. It’s a problem I have with any liquid clay and with Genesis obviously.
Because he was already baked and solid I could tie him down, obviously this wouldn’t work with uncured clay. That leads me back to my post from yesterday where I talked about sculpting the Hatter about three weeks ago and he wasn’t very pliable, he was hard to fit to the shape of the tea pot.
Oh and I decided to move him to the right side of the teapot and like him there better so it all worked out.
Yesterday I sculpted Alice and placed her on the teapot right away while she was still soft. She stuck pretty well and didn’t move around when I baked her. I didn’t use the Genesis on Alice before baking because it’s thick and hard to spread, I didn’t want to mess up my sculpting efforts by push to hard.
She’s stuck to the teapot pretty well without anything but just the same I’ll pop her off and use Genesis before I bake the teapot again.
The flamingo makes me smile, being from Florida the flamingo is a favorite Alice Character of mine, not that there are any in my part of the state! Sandhill cranes yes, Flamingos no.
Here’s how the set is shaping up and you know that by the time I’m finish, I’ll have to add a few Alice crazy flowers. Thanks for following along.
I found this tea set while I was working on my silver pitcher, it was a really good deal at my local antique store. I mentioned in the silver pitcher post that I was working on something else and it was going to be fun. (for me at least) Well it’s been over a month since I started it and I’ve done oh so many other things since then. But I finally got back to it yesterday and I can see it is going to take me several months to finish it.
I’m labeling it my year long project. Alice in Wonderland tea/coffee set. I can already see that there are going to be challenges along the way. I have to remember that eventually the silver will tarnish and the pieces will have to be polish and rinsed. I’ll have to careful that the finishes don’t rub off and all the pieces are secure. It will be interesting I think, so follow me down the rabbit hole if you dare.
First of all I do not plan on using this tea/coffee set. I don’t think the clay would fair well, plus the insides of the tea and coffee pots are in the greatest shape. But most of all, I don’t serve tea and coffee with a silver service! Who knew? It’s going to be purely for display.
This was the first figure I sculpted. one of the Queen’s herald rabbits. I sculpted him right onto the handle of the creamer. There are going to be more things added to this piece, it’s not finished.
I’m notorious for jumping around so I jumped right to the Mad Hatter. I had a couple of problems with him and I’m still working on them. The first thing is that I sculpted him about three weeks ago and he’s just been sitting there. (lesson # one, if you begin it, finish it then) I put the finishing touches on him and placed him on the tea pot. Well, naturally he was not as pliable as when I first sculpted him and he didn’t want to conform. Sounds just like the Mad Hatter doesn’t it?
I placed him on the tea pot, supported his tea cup with a bit of polyfil and put him in the oven. When I brought him out of the oven, he had slid up on the pot. I placed a towel over him and gently moved him back into position and press him just as gently into place. Well…this works well for thinner pieces, but he’s thick and he cracked a bit along the middle, his head fell off (“off with their heads” said the Queen), plus I broke the tea cup off and it took his finger with it. No problem, glued the crack together, and glued his head back on.
Then I had fun adding color using markers, make up and my new fun coloring toy Inktense sticks. (water color in stick form)
I glued him to the tea pot (superglue Gel), I had to hold him in place while the glue dried, but he stayed put. Then I couldn’t find the little tea cup that had broken off so I made another cup and finger and attached it with TLS. I actually like this cup better so all’s good. I put the tea pot with the Mad Hatter back into the oven and baked again. Alice is going to go right next to him and the dormouse and the March Hare will probably end up on the other side. Lewis Carroll certainly liked rabbits I think. The White rabbit and the herald and the March Hare all appear in this adventure.
Next I have to cover him with TLS so that his finish won’t come off when it’s time to polish, then back into the oven again. Whew. We’ll see how that works.
So this is my adventure, I’m learning and have fun. I’ll post more as I progress, but don’t be surprise if other things get posted about in-between.
Some of these charms are made with my Stroppel 2 cane. Here’s the how to!
Just like the white rabbit, Oh dear, Oh dear, I’m late, I’m late. And like Alice, I don’t quite know which door to open first.
I’m going on retreat and just finished the charms for the charm exchange, finishing up the brown bag exchange gift, figuring out what to donate for the auction and washing clothes. Whew!
The stressful part is trying to stay under the 50lb bag limit. Packing, weighing, taking important stuff out and then putting it back in again and leaving out some clothes. I figure I’ll just wear the same thing over and over. Better that than leaving out important polymer clay stuff…..
I was very happy to see that my rabbit and I were featured on Polymer Clay Daily today. Cynthia is spot on today, I feel just like the other Alice running around in wonderland. But I actually feel like Alice more often than not, after all I am Alice. *Grin*
I hope today finds everyone having a Wonderland kind of day. Just stay off the roads if you are. hehe
I’ve always love fairytales and Alice in Wonderland, ( I wonder why) so I’m playing with some of the characters.
I tried some Sculpey original white clay for the rabbit. It takes the alcohol ink differently than the white Premo. I need to play with it more to see which I like better. There are pros and cons to both it seems.
I’ll let you know.
“We’re all mad here.”
― Lewis Carroll (The Cheshire Cat), Alice in Wonderland
I feel like I followed the White Rabbit into a hole and don’t know when I’ll get out again. I began the long put off task of cleaning out my spare room. I won’t go into details, it’s just too scary. I didn’t need halloween, I had my own frightening adventure in my house.
But I’ve taken a day to play with clay and get something out of my head and into a design. It’s my contour cat bracelet. I think he is related to the other Alice’s Cheshire Cat, don’t you?
Here’s the other side.
And here it is on my wrist. I can tell you from experience that I always get compliments and comments when I wear my boldest contour bracelets, mainly because they’re so crazy.
I have lots more work to do on “the room” but I can’t stay away from clay for long. I agree with the Cheshire Cat, I am a bit crazy when it comes to clay. See you next time.
 This is the second of two bracelets I made as samples for a client. She chose the first bracelet and so this one I’m going to keep for myself.
This is another bracelet made with the technique used in my new Pen and Ink tutorial. You can look to the upper left hand side of this page for a link to purchase it or click here.
 I had a clothing designer contact me last week about doing a bracelet for her runway show in April. She makes fun repurposed clothing, really cool stuff that’s bright and colorful. She has an Alice in Wonderland theme on some of her clothes and we got to talking about very large buttons too.
So I made her the bracelet above, well actually I made two and she liked them both, but said she had something more colorful in mind.
So I colored it again and added some colorful dots and flowers and things and she really liked it. Me too actually, it’s hard to choose I like them both, but for her designs the colorful one works best.
Then I finished up several buttons for her to choose from and sent her these 3″ round ones for a hoodie jacket she’s doing. She promises to send pictures.
These remind me of Tim Burton’s Alice, so colorful and fun. Loved that movie.
I took this picture before I drilled the holes. You can see her work in her Etsy Shop. It was great fun and I’m going to do more pen and ink on polymer really soon. I have some crazy ideas running around in my head…..kind of like the Mad Hatter. *g*.
These buttons and bracelet were done using the techniques in my newest video for sale – Pen and Ink on Polymer Clay. It’s fun and easy to do any design you want to. You don’t have to be able to draw pictures, you can begin with abstract graphic designs and really make some colorful pins or bracelets or maybe a great wall hanging. You can look to the upper left hand side of this page for a link to purchase it or click here.
Thanks to everyone that stops by and specially to those who take the time to comment, I know how time consuming it is sometimes. Alice
|
|
Comments