all day.
Meg and I headed to Tipp City this morning for another polymer clay class with Lilian Nichols. This time the subject was Flower Canes.
Tipp city was a happening place today. When we arrived, there was a great little Farmer's Market.
We ate lunch at Coldwater Cafe and ordered the same thing - the Crab and Corn Chowder and the Pecan Chicken Salad. Yummy! The restaurant is housed in what once was a bank. There are separate dining rooms in what used to be the vault and the boardroom and they have signs hanging outside each door naming them as such. They also had wonderful artwork. I snapped a few pictures of this three-canvas painting in The Vault and another one of this basket of red apples and pears hanging in The Boardroom. If you're in the area, definitely stop in for lunch or dinner. Delish!
After lunch, we headed over to Studio 14 - Benkin Gallery of Fine Art. The gallery space is upstairs - a nice space above an antique shop.
There were four of us taking Lilian's class today. We were all in her last class - Kaleidoscope Canes.
Polymer clay is such a cool medium. You can really let your creative juices flow. The flower canes were fun but a bit fiddly. It was really neat seeing what each student produced. That's the best thing about working in a class - seeing all the different creations. Each students' color combination was different.
Meg chose pinks and purples with a blue thrown in for good measure. She packed translucent clay in between her petals and the flower really popped out. Meg also reduced her cane and made clusters of tiny flowers. So cute!
Karen worked in blues, pinks, and whites. She is an art teacher and her work was just perfect! I remember her having the most interesting kaleidoscope cane in the last class. Her color combination was so different - olive green, burgundy, ecru, navy - very pretty.
Mary Anne worked with blues and white. I didn't get a close-up picture of her finished cane but it was very pretty. She also packed her petals with translucent clay. There is a picture in the "group" shot below.
Lilian did this flower as a demonstration. She didn't pack her petals at all and I loved the look of just the flower. Wouldn't this make great earrings?
To start our flower canes, we made a Skinner Blend. We chose dark, medium, and white colors. I chose orange, yellow, and white and ended up with Halloween Candy Corn!
Once you get your colors blended like you want, you process the clay on the smallest or next to smallest setting on your pasta machine. This elongates your clay into a very thin strip. Next, you roll it up - tightly - from either the dark to light or the light to dark ends.
I used a dark purple and a bright chartreuse green for my flower center and liked the result.
Then, I blended purple with white to get a pretty shade of hot pink. I packed the spaces between my petals with this color. I think packing between the petals with a color rather than translucent is better for buttons.
My petals squared off at the ends from too much pressing but all flowers are different, right?
I had some scraps from making my cane so I made some buttons and two beads.
LOVE making these buttons! They are so much fun. And, I just love the colors.
I made one round bead. I rolled a ball out of red clay and then cut thin slices off the cane I used for the center of my flower and stuck them on the bead. I wish I had more of the red to make more. It looked really cool!
I made a long thick bead by forming a ball out of white clay and then covering it with thin slices from my flower cane. I didn't bake this in class so may change the shape or turn this big bead into three beads. Not sure yet. This picture is kind of blurry but it gives you the idea.
This is a great "group shot" of the flower cane slices and my buttons and beads from today's class. These were all baked at the end of class. This gives one example of packing no clay between your flower petals, two examples of using translucent between the petals, and two examples of using a color. Neat comparisons.
As we packed up to leave Studio 14 today, there were grand happenings outside on the street. A car show. I bet there were 100 Trans Ams on display. Engines so shiny clean that you could eat off them. There were food vendors and lots of people milling about along the main drag. People had set up folding chairs all along the street. I don't know what was to come but there sure was a crowd waiting for it. Who knew Tipp City was such a happening place!
Meg and I drove home and we were pooped.
Then, there was the perfect finish to the day.
I ended my day on the front porch with my Lendrum like this.
Look at that sunset!
Perfect!