JAPANESE PATTERNS

Donna Kato's Feather Cane:


Sarah Shriver's Kaleidoscope Caning Techniques

Various caning techniques

There are several mokume gane techniques. My favorite is Lindly Haunani's "Transparent Layered Mokume Gane with leafing", aka the "topographical" mokume gane. These two are a variation on that technique, where instead of translucent clay I used metallic mixes of closely related hues:

Another master of the mokume gane techniques is Julie Picarello, with her wonderful muted color palettes, thanks to her own "Jecru" mix. Here are a few attempts at her Lazy River technique (with less muted colors, I am afraid):

The "ghost image" and "mica shift" techniques are a lot of fun and yield spectacular results, when succesful. They are generally very time consuming and require a lot of practice. The nice thing about trying these techniques is that mistakes result only in time loss - since most of the time you use only one color of metallic clay, if you make any mistakes, you can start all over without losing any of the clay. Your patience and attention to detail will be rewarded!

A few magicians with these techniques: Pier Voulkos, Grant Diffendaffer, and Dan Cormier.

As a member of the PCGMN guild, I have the priviledge to participate in group projects with various themes. Below are the pieces I have made for some of them: "Orange Cup Coral" for "Make a Splash"; "Rainbow Colored Chinese Lanterns" for "Thing on a String"; life-like butterfly, mushroom clusters, and leaves for "Forest Floor".

At the Clay Carnival 2012 in Las Vegas, I made my very first image transfer, under Donna Kato's guidance. She and Leslie Bradford taught us how to make pub sign pendants. Below you can see my Flying Fox and the Peeled Grapes signs, followed by my sister's version of the Flying Fox.

I have learned several techniques which combine polymer clay, alcohol inks, and metallic leaf to produce exquisite effects. The beads in the image below were made using Barbara McGuire's "Shimmering Mokume Gane" technique.



Another technique is Christi Uliczny's "Rocky Path Jewelry":



The most recent techniques I learned in this category were those developed by Emma Ralph for her "Illuminaire and Clarice Beads". Here are my first attempts:

For now I will let the image speak for itself. More to come on this topic.

If I like the appearance and feel of the baked beads, I leave them as they are when they come out of the oven. Most of the time, however, I go for the more satisfying feel and look of the well sanded and buffed finish. And in some cases, to obtain the most striking effect of the technique used to form the beads, this extra work is absolutely necessary, as in the case of the ghost images.

I sand with several grits of sandpaper - from 220 up to 2000 - and then I buff the pieces if I want them to get the glossy finish, or I just leave them as they are for a more satiny look:

 
If the surface of the object is smooth enough before baking, I sometimes just cover it with a very thin layer of Kato liquid clay and bake again. Afterwards, I either directly buff the object, or I first sand it lightly with only 800, 1500, and 2000 grit, to make the surface really smooth.