My Brain in Clay….or
Otherwise known as the *Brain Cane*
Supplies needed:
Premo clay in three different colors …about 1/2 small package worth each
Premo white clay1/2 block
Premo black clay 1 full package.
Pasta machine
Step one: Condition all your clay. I chose to use pearlized clays…blue, copper and gold, each toned down a bit with plain pearl. As you can see I have the white and black clay in longer strips. Set these aside while we do the next step.
Step 2: Lay your colors out in the order you want them to blend and create a skinner blendfrom them. I chose to have it go gold/blue/copper so I would also get a bit of green and purple once it was blended.
Step three: make your skinner blend and when it is done then fold in half and turn it a quarter turn so the skinny end goes through the PM and you get a long blend as opposed to a wide blend.
Step 4: Lay the blend aside and bring back the black and white strips. Take part of the black and run it through the pasta machine until it is a #4 (medium thin).
Step 5: Lay that #4 black strip on the #1 white and run that through the machine on a #1. Lay the other black strip (which is still a #1 thickness on top of the white and run that through the machine on a #1. You should now have a sandwich of clay with a thicker black, white, thin black layer.
Step 6: Take your blended strip and lay it on the black/white/black sandwich. Make sure you lay it on the side that has the thinner black strip. Run this whole thing through the pasta machine on a #1
Step 7: Once you have it all stacked up then it is time to create “the brain”. Decide which color you want in the center of the cane and then start rolling and folding the layers of clay like this…..
Step 8: keep folding and flipping and folding until you are almost at the end. You want to make sure the black is showing all the way around the cane in the end. Once you have it all accordion folded and wrapped, roll the outside smooth. The one nice thing about this cane is that you don’t need to be worried about distorting it when you reduce it. Here is my cane smoothed out but not reduced yet.
This cane is approximately the size of a 50 cent piece. It can be reduced down or used at this size.
Happy braining
Copy write Kathi Gose 2004