Saturday, January 15, 2011

Creating a Landscape Pendant

Some time ago I did an exchange with Sandy, a fellow Canadian polymer clay artist.  I sent her a pair of earrings and she had sent me some beautiful landscape canes she had created.  I said I would finish some of them off into some jewelry pieces and share how I did it.  They were all so nice, I needed time to choose the best design .  This is what I created from one of her canes:



I took 2 slices from the cane and placed them on a thin sheet of clay,
lining them up to create a mirror image.


Place a sheet of tracing paper and burnish
with a thick piece of card stock.

You can see how the two pieces are now joined and fairly smooth.

I then cut out my shape.  A shaped cutter would've worked good for this,
however I didn't have one in the size I wanted so I just used my blade.

I rolled some clay out to the same thickness as the cane piece ...

and cut out around the piece creating a "frame".

I then removed the center piece and replaced it with the cane slice.

I burnished the entire piece smooth again to blend the seams.

I then made a textured sheet of clay for the backing ...

and placed the textured sheet below the cane sheet with wrong sides together.

I cut around it leaving a "frame".

I wanted a curve to the pendant so I baked it over
a piece of cut paper towel roll.

To attach a cord I made a couple of "tubes" from clay and attached them
to the back using liquid clay as a bonding agent and then baked again.

I sanded the entire piece and then gave it a nice satin glaze finish. 
I hung it from a velvet rubber cord and Voila!  I now have a
gorgeous pendant and keepsake memento of Sandy's beautiful cane work!

7 comments:

Sandy said...

Wow - what a beautiful job you did with this! Thanks for the tutorial, it's given me some much needed inspiration.

That cane was something I did quickly and out of scrap colours - it seems to be many people's favourites.

Cynthia Blanton said...

That's terrific. It looks like a sunset reflection on a lake (or maybe a sunrise). Beautiful.

Cynthia

Anonymous said...

Great job.. and I too thank you for the mini tutorial.. I think I have a piece or two of Sandy's landscape canes, so will have to see what I can come up with. Gail

2 Good Claymates said...

So glad you like it Sandy. Sorry I took so long to finally create something but very happy with the results. Already working on some bracelet links with another cane of yours...

Di said...

It's lovely and thanks for showing how you did it!

Lupe Meter said...

Beautiful job! I have yet to try this landscape technique. I have seen it on a DVD. Beautiful!

Fabi said...

Fabuloso !!!!, me encanta !!!