Monday, February 20, 2012

A Better Bear

Hi All,

Some of you may remember my first very poor attempt at making a bear cane.  If you don't, you can see it here.

It's been a few years and I decided to make another go.  The source of the inspiration this time was a shot glass that we picked up for my niece during our recent New Mexico vacation. You can see that in the first photo.  

I used the image for the general shape and size, but since I knew that I was going to be reducing it to about a 1/4 inch size I wanted a little less detail.

He wasn't too bad to make, I used some canes that I had had for other things.  The Sandra McCaw technique for reducing canes worked out nicely.  All told there's probably about three hours of effort in this cane.

Am I happy with him?  Not sure.  The shape seemed to square off a bit - maybe if I had put him in a round cane that wouldn't happen as much.  I don't know that I would call him a bear in the final cane - he still looks more cow like.

And I'm really having a heck of a time getting the Kato clay to match consistency across colours.  The white stayed soft no matter how much I leached it and that meant that it reduced faster than the other colours.  Some of that is that I've run out of white with the old formulation, but the bronze is with the new formulation, too, and it was still stiffer.

But he's a lot better than my first attempt, that's for sure!

Cheers,

Sandy



The inspiration


The unreduced cane
The final reduced cane


4 comments:

Cindy Lietz, Polymer Clay Tutor said...

I remember your first attempt Sandy and this is a huge improvement! I think he looks way more like a bear than a cow. Love the shading you did across his back. Gives him lots of dimension. Attempting these kinds of detailed canes gives you a lot of respect for someone like Jon Anderson and his amazing canework, doesn't it? I like your bear cane. Looking forward to seeing how you use it!

Louise said...

Only one word Sandy, Wow!
You allmost want to go back to caning.If only my hands could follow.

Louise said...

forgot make me in the previous comment

Virginie Dufour ... fimodevivi@gmail.com said...

so magic, I love it !!!!