Novato Library Polymer Clay Workshop

 I have been attending workshops at the local Novato Library on Monday nights, twice a month.  This week was polymer clay.  I have done several projects with clay - but i have never made canes.  Canes are made by stacking and sandwiching tubes or blocks or strips of clay and then rolling to stretch it out.  Sorry i missed pictures of the process - but here are my results! First i made a cane with a spiral of pink and turquoise clay, surrounded by black and white and encased in orange.  I rolled it out a little bit too much!  (but not bad for the first time)  i sliced my cane into rounds and stuck them to an altoids tin.  when i got it home i popped it in a warm over - 250 degrees, for about 20 minutes - and voila!

Here is the second tin i covered with canes.  these were done with scraps of clay - but it was interesting to see how rolling and cutting are critical to uniform colour disbursement.  You know, if that's what you were going for.  I honestly was just having fun practicing.

 Next i wanted to attempt a checkerboard.  I ran some blue and red clay through the pasta maker into long flat strips.  i layered the colours and cut then stacked and cut and stacked,  then cut and alternated and stacked and repeat and so on.  once i had about 4 inches of checkerboard clay, i created a creature and covered it up.  adding feet, forked tongue and beady eyes. It got baked too along with the tins. hard as rock - and seems pretty durable.  although i wouldn't give it to a child to play with or anything like that....!

Next i just played with more scraps and created some more patterns.  it looks like a sock!
I'll find another tin to cover.  it could be cute!  Thanks to Amanda at the library for teaching us how to work with polymer clay.  Here are some shots from the rest of the students: