Doodle me - do with Nikolina Otržan doodle me - do by nikolina otržan
TOOLS & MATERIALS: flat clean surface (glass would be ideal) pasta machine acrylic roller rigid blade ruler photocopy & parchment paper pair of scissors & Scotch tape clay gun with square disc (optional) bangle base (if you don't have it, you'll make one) sheet of coarse sand paper smallest round Kemper cutter (optional) round cutters - 2 different sizes (up to 1") small Kemper triangle cutter (optional) 1.5" basic leaf cutter white & black oil paint (or acrylic paint) cotton swabs (ear sticks) baby wipes oven micro mesh pads/ sanding & polishing tools renaissance wax (optional) Clay: solid clay (Kato, Fimo classic...) - aprox. 12 oz of black and white each - 2 oz of royal blue - 1 oz of red and orange each - aprox. 10 oz of scrap clay - liquid polymer clay 2
ZIG ZAG CANE First we'll make a very simple zig-zag cane, using some 2 ounces of black and aprox. an ounce and a half of white clay. We'll condition both colors and determine which one we want to be the main color. That color will be finally rolled thru the thicker setting of a pasta machine, the other one thru thinner one. I'm using Atlas, so my thickest setting is number one. In this case, my black sheet was rolled thru the thickest setting, so that's my main color, and I've rolled the white one thru the setting number 5. Then I've rolled both sheets toghether thru the thickest setting. If you're doing it for the first time, you can check Dona Kato's free class about building the basic stripy slab. Cut it exactly in half and turn them sideways. 3
Put them together like shown. Since we need all the sides to be the same width, I'll measure the shorter side and trim the other side to match that width. My width is aprox 5 cm, which is around 2 inches. Trim the excess. 4
Rotate your slab like I did, and start cutting roughly the same width of strips. And now turn over every other slab 5
and slide them back into your square. And here is our pattern. Trim the sides. Size the cane down, if needed. Check free Julie Eakes class at CraftArtEdu where you'll learn how to reduce your square cane. 6
And in the end, make a base out of scrap. Here they are! 7
TANGLE CANE I've chosen white for my base. I've conditioned some 2 ounces of white and stacked it. Dimensions are some 3 inches in its length and 2 inches in its width. Then I made a skinner blend and put it into plug. If you don't know how to do it, check free CAE classes. Then I've conditioned some ounce of black which I'll use to sandwich that plug I used my roller to make my plug square. But your plug should be the same height as your base and a little bit longer because you'll be inserting the plug parts in the base and you want to use the whole of your finished slab. So, we'll thin that black sheet further, as much as you can. 8
Then I've sliced my square plug into aprox. 8 equal parts. And since you can't get them to be dead equal, I've rolled each of them later thru the second thickest setting of my pasta machine. And here I'll start making sandwiches! Black, blue, black, trim until you have done all of them. 9
Now cut your white slab in two, basically anywhere you like. Insert the first sandwich. 10
Trim the excess. Make another cut And insert your second sandwich. 11
Trim. Do the third one. As you can see here, after inserting the third one, everything's still perfect, lines are still straight. After every insert, check the other side. If everything is nice and straight as at the front, then you're doing OK. Now we're coming to the point where we'll have to deal with two other lines! See the shifts? So, here we will have to cut a bit of our base. How much? The exact width of the sandwich. 12
And you will be doing the exact same thing with the rest of the inserts. So, first make a cut, cut a piece out (sandwich width), no matter if it's cut from upper or bottom side and insert your sandwich. And after you've inserted all your sandwiches, you should end up with a similar slab. Prepare some scrap and make a base. And this was my black and white finished slab. Obviously, the more sandwiches you insert, the more leftover you'll have. 13
The black lines here were drawn afterwards, when I finished it completely. Then I baked it again and protected it with PYM II spray (Preserve your memories). 14
3D CANE Condition few colors of your liking. Dimensions should be aprox. 3x 2. Your final thickness at this point should be the thickest setting of your pasta machine. You'll also need some black and white. For this cane I'll be using 2 ounces of black and 1 ounce of white. After you've conditioned them, roll them out thru the setting number five. First you'll need a clay gun and a square disc to extrude some 12 of black. Cut it into 4 logs and make a square. If you don't own a clay gun, just make a thick log and make it square using your acrylic roller. And then just start wraping, but just two sides, half of your square log. Use your roller to lightly straighten the clay, especially the edges. The setting on my pasta machine for that light blue was number two, the second thickest one. 15
Then I'm adding a coat of white, rolled out on middle setting of pasta machine, say setting number six. And a coat of black, the same setting or even thinner. Then I've put a coat of royal blue, which was rolled thru the 3rd thickest setting. 16
And again, coat of white and black. For turquoise you can use setting number 4 or 5... so after white and black, I've added another thick (setting 2) coat of light blue and in the end, another white and black. And by now, you should have ended up with a perfect square and if your clay is not too soft, you can start resizing your cane. 17
Again, if you don't know how to do it, check Julie Eakes free class. When you're done, cut it in 4 equal parts. And here is our final 3D cane! 18
Of course, you could have made it out of 9 parts instead of 4, choice is yours! 3D other way And, here is another way of doing a 3D cane. So, I've prepared: - sheet of black, which I'll use mostly to wrap my cane - square log of black, long aprox. 2.5, 1/3 square face - square log of scrap, long aprox. 2.5 and an 1 square face - striped log (the same dimensions as the scrap one) First I've placed scrap and black log next to each other. Then I've made a mark accross the black log, continuing to the scrap one. And in the end, I made a mark in scrap one. The vertical one. 19
Cut along the lines. I'm putting the black log back, next to the scrap one to check if it fits and now I'm doing the exact same thing with the stripy log And it looks I've done a good job, I only have some room for a black stripe for in-between. 20
Voila! And now I'll wrap my cane with the rest of that black sheet. Reduce your cane to the size of your liking and that's it! 21
3D cane yet another way And one more way of doing the 3D cane. Here we have a sheet of black, square log of scrap and black, the exact same size, and a small square stripy one. Cut the black and scrap logs accross and down. Put them together 22
And cut out a small square. Insert the small stripy log and trim the excess. 23
And finally wrap. QUICK CANE Ready for another quick one? OK, condition a sheet of white (aprox 1 oz) and two ounces of black and stack it to form a slab like shown on the picture. Cut a strip from the slab, put it aside.. 24
And cut the rest of the slab in thin strips. Thin the white sheet further, so roll it thru the 4th or 5th setting on your pasta machine. The idea is to insert thin white strips between those black strips. Insert. 25
Trim the excess. Do the same with the rest of the clay. Of course, that strip that we've cut out earlier will need to be elongated a bit or you can just leave out one of the black strips in the end. And this is exactly what I did here. So after we put our black strip at the top, we will cut the slab again, this time between the white lines. 26
And in the end, we will turn around every other strip and put everything together. And this is the look of the final cane. 27
BANGLES Once we have those canes made, we'll prepare two sheets of clay, as I have here, red and orange. The final setting I've rolled those thru is the 2nd thickest setting on my Atlas. Amount? Some 2 ounces each. And of course, we'll need some scrap clay, 2 ounces to start with. The scrap clay here is rolled thru the thickest one. We'll use it to make the first layer of our bangle. Of course, I've measured the length of the paper I've wrapped around my base so I know how long sheet I need. In this case, it's just under 25 cm or some 10. But naturally, your length can be completely different, depending on the diameter of your base. Don't have a bangle base? I've made mine using this stainless cinammon dispenser. I've simply wraped a piece of parchment paper around it, taped the paper together and then i wraped a sheet of scrap clay over it and baked it. How thick does that sheet have to be? As thick as needed. The most important thing is that is strong, firm. So if you wrap just one sheet, rolled thru the thickest setting, it will be fine, if you're using strong clay. You should wrap until the clay on the form is slightly larger than a bangle that fits you.. Maybe 1/16" larger. You've got to make it larger because of the final, interior wrap. 28
Trim the edges and decide on your bangle width. I use my ruler to help me get a straight line! Bevel the edges. 29
Burnish the seam. Wrap a sheet of paper to determine the length of the upper layer. Cut your sheets down to end up with 2 of each color. 30
Cut those in half horizontally. Choose your patterns and cut the sheets, having in mind the thickness which should be the same as the thickness of your layer. Put two cane sheets together and burnish them lightly. 31
Cut and switch. Choose another pattern. Yet another and finish your second fish in the same way. 32
This is what they look like together. Choose patterns for the third one. Burnish. 33
And here are all four. Roll out thin sheet of scrap and put your 4 pieces on top of it. 34
Burnish it using some photocopy paper And in the end, put everything around your base very carefully. As you can see, the cuts between the squares are really straight and that's the way we want them to be at this point. We'll be filling those gaps a bit later. 35
Now we'll take our triangle cutter and use it to make our fish tails. Be carefull not to push the cutter in too hard. And in the end, we'll wrap a piece of paper around it, tape it (paper to paper) with some Scotch tape and put it in the oven. Bake it as your clay manufacturer recommends it for 40 minutes. 36
Once your piece has cooled down, you'll take some harsh sand paper and sand the edges against it. Of course, both sides. Since I wanted to see that the bangle is going to look like afterwards, I'd taken some white oil paint and an ear stick and put some paint around my fish bits, in the crevices. But that's not necessary to do at this point. 37
Now we'll fill those vertical gaps with some clay. I've conditioned a little bit of white clay and added a bit of fimo deco gel to soften it further. And as you can see here, I put that mixture in the gaps. 38
Then I used the back of my stiff blade to take the excess off. And since I've ended up with a tiny gap at the inner seam, I decided to back fill it with some black clay. Now you can either proceed with baking for 30 minutes or add another layer if your bangle is too big. Adding and extra inner layer Apply a little bit of liquid polymer and smear it with a piece of photocopy paper all over the inside. 39
Then I've rolled a sheet of black clay and cut it down to the right width. The thickness of this sheet is as needed. In this case, middle thickness. I've rolled it longer than I actually need it, but I'll trim the excess once I have the sheet inside. Roll the sheet around the piece of paper. Take the paper out. 40
Now trim the excess. Stretch it away from the seam to make it fit. Make the seam invisible. Bake it for 30 minutes. 41
After it cools down, sand it again with some coarse sand paper. The inside, but the edges as well beacuse we want to make them softer. And once we've done that, we are ready for our final inner layer. Final inner layer We'll repeat applying liquid polymer on the inside, preparing the final black sheet which now needs to be an inch (at least) wider than our bangle (since we'll be folding the edges) 42
And we'll insert the sheet inside, as we did before. First we'll remove the paper and then carefully trim the excess. Then we'll use our roller to make sure the sheet sticks to the base. 43
And then we'll fold the edges. We'll make the seam by gently pushing sides towards each other. And we'll start trimming from somewhere in the middle, towards the seam. 44
Use a roller or some roung knitting needle, for example, to make sure seams are invisible. And in the end, put it in the oven to bake for 45 minutes. Once it's cooled down, sand and polish your bangle. In the end, apply a bit more of white oil paint in the crevices around your fish and let it dry. The same way we did before, using an ear stick and wiping the excess off almost immediately. 45
For the main color of the other bangle I've chosen blue. I've also decided to add a bit of translucent here to give my blue some depth. First we're going to make our base and bake it. Once we have the base, we are going to prepare the upper layer, final setting being the 2nd thickest setting on your pasta machine. You're free to chose your own width. Mine is a bit under 2''. We're going to sand the base, inside out. 46
Put some liquid clay on the outside. Bevel one end in order to make that seam as invisible as possible. Mark the edge and bevel the other one. 47
Take some round tool to smooth the seam as much as you can, but be carefull because you don't want to distort it or thin it down. Prepare your cane slices and burnish them. Make a cut 48
and carefully place it on your cane sheet FACE DOWN. Cut around your blue cutout and trim. 49
Lift the blue cutout and place the new insert. Do the same all around your bangle. Use your largest cutter to cut over your seam. 50
Keep replacing them until you're happy with it. When you're done, bake it for 40 minutes. You can wrap it with a piece of paper for extra protection if you like. Do the inner layer following instructions from the fish bangle. So after we're done with the inner bit, as well as with sanding and polishing, we'll add some oil paint into the crevices. 51
In the end, we'll apply some rennaissance wax and polish them with a piece of clean cloth. 52