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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:

  1. 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.

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

    Cynthia

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  3. 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

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  4. 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...

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

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

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