My poor little bear cane...

Hi Everyone,

Some of you may remember that I had grandiose plans on making a bear cane for my project. This first photo is the original plan. The second photo is where I got stumped. It's been sitting stumped in a margarine container since March and I started working on him again last weekend. I finally got a shape that was OK, though he looked of a cross between a buffalo and a bear. I wanted to add an interesting background and the brain cane stuck in my mind as a possibility. So last weekend I got half a brain cane wrapped around him and then ran out of clay and patience.


Today I played hooky from work (with their permission) and decided enough was enough. I was tired of the little voice that whispered "finish me" each time I went into my hobby room. So, I thought, since he's never going to go the way that I have in my mind, it's just time to finish him and see what happens with it.



And the result is....

I'm not sure - he's kinda cute in an incredibly homely way though I don't think anyone would mistake him for a bear. He fits in well with the other canes for my project (if you're new to my blog, the first project entry is here). In hindsight, adding the blue and white cane for the eye makes him a bit drunken looking and he really does look more like a cow than anything else.

For those of you in Canada, as I was reducing him I was reminded of the Bell Canada commercials with the beavers though he didn't have a tail.

Reduction went really well, I used Sandra McCaw's technique. My hands and arms are tired but I consider the price of her video even more well spent. Not much scrap clay generated.

I thought the brain cane technique would be a good way to fill in the gaps, but as with the trillium cane that I did a long while back, filling in around a smooth edge with a lumpy bumpy edge causes the smooth edge to go lumpy bumpy. You can see that in the photos in the larger cane though by the time you get to the smaller cane you don't notice it so much.

Anyhow, he's done and no more whispers from him (though there are other projects still trying to get my attention).

I think my next cane will be a landscape cane since I don't really have any of those yet and they're great fun.

Tomorrow is clay day with the gals - we're going to try Desiree's Casa Blanca Beads. If you're not part of some of the clay groups, you really should take a look at the photos and the technique that she's got. She's been one of my favourite websites for a long time and I've got her linked on the left or you can go straight from here.

Cheers everyone.

Sandy