I just put up new pages on my website about a week long polymer clay class I did in Jackson Mississippi and blog posts too that you can view from here:
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We made lots of masks, with all sorts of faces and molds that we made with silicone Amazing Mold Putty. from Alumilite. And we made beads too--I even showed the students how to make hand beads, which I rarely ever do, but they were school teachers and not looking to be professional beadmakers in competition with me...so I showed them! Sarajane
(re-sending) That class sounds wonderful. A teacher friend of mine from a remote village comes to Fairbanks every years for classes at the International Arctic Research Center at Univ of AK. She was a railroad tramp who worked summers as a paleontologist, before an injury turned her to teaching. So I know the synergy creative interested people, professionals, and high quality teaching develops.
This group looks like it had that same dynamic. What a lot of fun projects you put together. I wonder if the two part mold you used is like the one I used with PMC. I made a silver button from a silver button from my grandmother. A new generation of buttons by a new generation (well, newer than hers!).
I have a PC question. Where do canes come from? Many beads seem to use rose canes. Are they handmade? I know I've seen some lovely roses on beads that are not well formed and so I figure the canes were purchased.
That leads to other questions. Do I like that I could make a bead from someone else's better canes? Of course. Do I like that someone else is offering a bead for sale that isn't really her own work? Well, I like that less. But is that so different from my making a necklace from someone else's beads?
Hey, it's 11 PM and beginning to get dark. Or is it just overcast? I miss darkness this time of year.
Tina, cane work is a technique borrowed from Italian glass makers from several centuries past. The artisans who knew how to do this were not allowed to leave their island on pain of death... but I'll tell ya now. They used rods of colored glass, placed in patterns and then heated and pulled to make them thinner and narrower. With polymer clay, we can put the patterns in place with no heat, and then use pressure to extrude (squeeze) the shape so that it becomes thinner and narrower. Detail is built in big and then reduced in size.
Lots of people make canes in polymer clay and then sell parts of what they make. When I make a face cane, it is often 7 or 8 pounds of clay....I end up with 5 useable pounds of slices and 2-3 pounds of salvaged clay and thats a LOT of the cane. Even smaller canes yield a lot of slices. I don't sell my canes; I like making them and I like using them and I like showing others how to do it too. That seems like enough for now. SJ
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