Thursday, January 27, 2011

Adventures in Caning...


No, not the outlawed form of torture. Neither am I talking about the art of weaving seating for chairs. No, it's the process of layering different colored clays into a pattern and pressing them together so that when they are cut they form a distinct pattern or even a picture in the finished piece that looks like it is just naturally part of the clay. A good relatable example of awesome caning is that shiney sugar candy that is usually only available in December. You know the ones. Old fashioned, usually colored on the outside with white center and a picture in the middle, perhaps a flower, star, or evergreen tree. All that was made by a confectioner strategically layering and stretching molten bands of colored sugar. Pretty awesome, huh? Food Network is an amazing source of info!! Translate that to the clay world, and you can make some fabulous patterns to work with, or if you are really good, follow the confectioner's footsteps and make them form pictures that you can slice off and make into nifty beads!! Sadly, I am not yet one of those people. :( But, I DID try caning to make some pretty nifty leaves for some jungley fun. Here is the result, what do you think?

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