How to Make an Analogous Polymer Clay Retro Cane

Learn a little bit about color theory, creating your own color palette, and how to make a polymer clay retro cane in this tutorial.

A Little Bit of Color Theory

Ever since I began working with polymer clay I’ve stuck with buying the primaries and mixing my own colors. Occasionally, I’ll buy a premixed color, but it doesn’t happen often. Even then I’ll often give the packaged color a little tweak.

This cane has an analogous color palette, which means the colors are next to each other on the color wheel. You can see in the picture below I divided each color into nine parts. Magenta is the main color and the turquoise makes it purple. I added a bit of yellow to each to help neutralize the bright color. A small touch of black is added to make a darker tone and white is used to lighten things up.

It’s fun to experiment and mix your own colors. Working in small portions like this with a set number of parts is a great way to learn how colors blend together. It’s easy to repeat the recipe if you come up with a winner—just remember to write it down or snap a pic like I did. Plus, I like creating palettes using this method if I know I’ll need exactly the same amount of each color as used in the polymer clay retro cane.

Polymer Clay Retro Cane

If I remember correctly, a polymer clay retro cane (or Klimt cane) was the first cane I ever made. It’s been a favorite ever since as well as the most repeated cane I’ve made, though each one has been different. Ronit Golan has a fun tutorial with a flower incorporated into the design that you should check out.

Recently, I’ve been experimenting with using skinner blends in my retro canes and I am absolutely in love with the finished look. I’ve tried them with multiple colors, monochromatic blends, and with analogous palettes. And they all look so good! At this point I’m not sure I’d even make a polymer clay retro cane without including a skinner blend.

RELATED POST: HOW TO MAKE A POLYMER CLAY SKINNER BLEND

I hope I’ve convinced you that you need to try a polymer clay retro cane with a skinner blend. Grab you clay and let’s get creating!

Tools & Materials

• Non-porous work surface (I work on either glazed tile or glass)
• Pasta machine dedicated to polymer clay use (I use an Atlas 180 and will refer to the settings I use on my machine. If you don’t have a pasta machine an acrylic roller and some playing cards will do in a pinch, it’ll just take a little more work.)
• Five analogous polymer clay colors with a range of light to dark shades + white clay
• Polymer clay extruder with a square die
• Round shape cutter that is closest in size to your extruder, I used a 1/2″ cutter
• Sharp polymer clay blade  
• Acrylic rod

Directions for Polymer Clay Retro Cane

Preparing the Clay

Begin by mixing your color palette using the tips outlined above. My palette uses Fimo Professional clay in magenta, turquoise, yellow, white, and black. Each color is divided into nine parts and I use the occasional 1/2 and 1/4 parts. See the above photo to use as a recipe card.

Set the darkest and lightest colors in your palette aside and make skinner blends using white clay and the three middle colors.

Sheet each blend on a medium setting (no.3 on my Atlas) and fold into thirds. Set the pasta machine on the thickest setting (no.0) and pass one of the folded sheets through the machine feeding one of the narrow ends in first. Continue to pass it through the pasta machine on progressively thinner settings until you reach the thinnest setting you can go without tearing your clay. Depending on how warm it is that could be setting no.7, 8, or 9 for me.

Make a plug with the thin ribbon of clay by folding it back and forth in an accordion fold. Take care to trap as little air as possible. 

Repeat the above steps with the other two blends.

Press in the corners of each plug, shaping them into cylinders. Stretch the cylinders out and roll on your work surface to smooth the sides. You want them reduced to the same diameter as the round cutter you’ll be using.

Trim off the uneven ends of the cylinders and cut the remainder into 1/4” disks.

Sheet the two remaining colors from your palette on a no.3 setting and cut out as many disks as needed to build the tube of clay.

Building the Cane

Starting with one of the solid colored disks, begin building the tube of clay that will go in the extruder. There’s lots of alternating of things for this step so pay careful attention to what is going where:

• For the entire tube you’ll be alternating a thin, solid disk with a thick, blended disk
• Alternate colors each time you use a thin disk
• Alternate colors each time you use a thick, blended disk
• Alternate which way the light and dark sides line up on the thick disks

Once your tube of clay is built, give it a roll on your worktop to smooth everything out and make sure any trapped air is removed.

Load it into your extruder making sure you have a solid color disk coming out of the extruder first. Screw on a square die and extrude your clay.

Cut off the wonky ends from the extruded clay. Cut the square rope into 16 equal sized lengths and stack them together in a square cane that is 4 x 4 lengths.

Close the gaps between the squares by gently rolling the sides of the cane with an acrylic rod or brayer. To help get the air pockets out it helps to begin by rolling from the center of the cane to the ends a few times on each side before rolling from end to end.

Go ahead and cut a slice off the end of your polymer clay retro cane so you can see what you’ve created but then let it rest. Between color mixing, making blends, and extruding the clay, it’ll be quite warm and soft. The clay will need to cool down and firm up so you can get nice clean slices without distortion.

What will you do with your polymer clay retro cane? Keep an eye out for the next post where I’ll be using the hair to make a hair barrette.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, I’m happy to hear from you.