How to Make a Polymer Clay Floral Pattern Mix Cane part 4
This is the fourth and final part of the polymer clay floral pattern mix cane series! In this post learn to make a lily inspired flower cane and follow the tips for putting all the components together into a larger pattern mix cane.
Creating pattern mix canes can be an enjoyable process, even if it seems intimidating at first. However, they don’t have to be complicated. A floral pattern mix cane, for instance, begins with a collection of smaller and often simple canes.
If you’ve been following this series from the start, you’ll have learned how to make a simple flower cane, a basic leaf cane—used two ways—and a rose cane. To complete the floral pattern mix, I also added a “lily-ish” cane to the beginning of this tutorial.
Once you have all your components built, assembling the larger cane is straightforward. The two key factors for a successful pattern mix cane are ensuring all your clay is of the same consistency and packing it well to avoid distortion.
If you’re building the individual components over several days or longer, save the final reduction of them until the day you assemble the larger cane. Clay from a cane made a week ago will be firmer and won’t move at the same rate as clay from a cane made today. Reducing them all at the same time will help prevent distortion due to inconsistent clay consistency.
To achieve better results in your floral pattern mix cane, fill the gaps between cane components with small triangle snakes of clay. As you reduce your cane, the clay will move into any gaps, potentially causing a distorted pattern.
While I’ve listed the clay colors I used in the materials list, feel free to choose your own. I kept the floral pattern mix simple by using the same three colors for all components, plus a background color. However, you can use different colors for each component if you prefer. Just ensure the background color remains consistent as you build each smaller cane.
Tools & Materials | Floral Pattern Mix Cane
- 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.
- Polymer clay — I used Fimo Soft colors in Pink Grapefruit, White, Peppermint, and Indian Red
- Polymer clay blade
- Acrylic rod
Directions | Floral Pattern Mix Cane
First Up — the Lily-ish Flower
Start by conditioning the White and Pink Grapefruit polymer clay colors. For this cane I used 1/4 block (1/2 ounce) of each. Make a skinner blend with the two colors and finish by sheeting the blend on a medium setting (no.3 on my Atlas.)
Tightly roll the sheet up in the direction shown. Push the ends of the roll in, turning it into a short, fat cylinder approximately 1” tall. Press the cylinder on its side against your work surface to flatten it slightly.
Roll the squashed cylinder out with an acrylic roller until it is about twice as thick as the thickest setting on your pasta machine. Take care to only lengthen the piece of clay while maintaining the narrow width.
Run the clay through the pasta machine set on the thickest setting, feeding one of the narrow ends in first.
Neaten off the rounded ends and cut the remainder into 8 or 9 equal sized pieces of about 1”.
Condition the Indian Red clay and roll out a thin snake. Lay 2 or 3 pieces of the red clay across the lower half (from the white end) of all but one of the cut clay pieces.
Stack all of the pieces together, staggering them slightly so you end up with a rough petal shape when viewed from the end. The last piece of without the red clay snakes will be an end piece to your stack.
Shape the clay into a pointed petal shape and wrap with a piece of the Indian Red clay sheeted on a no.6 setting.
Reduce the petal cane until you have 6” of length with the wonky ends cut off. Reduce so one half of the cane is narrower than the other.
Cut the cane into six 1” pieces and assemble the flower by alternating the larger and smaller petals.
Condition some Peppermint clay, keep it narrow and sheet it on a thicker setting–I used no.2–and roll it into a short, squat cylinder.
Cut the cylinder into wedges to place between the petals.*
Refine the shape of each wedge to fit as perfectly as you can between the petals. A well packed cane means less distortion during the reduction process.
Wrap a couple thick sheets of blue clay around the flower once you have the wedges in place.
To round the cane before reducing use a round cutter a little larger than the diameter of the the flower to mark a circle. Use a flexible blade to trim away the excess clay.
Once your cane is rounded you can then reduce to your desired dimensions.
Tips & Tricks for Assembling the Floral Pattern Mix Cane
Before assembling the floral pattern mix cane reduce the individual component canes to your desired size. I like to have a few different sizes of each component and I vary the number of each as well.
Cut the canes into equal lengths of 2” to 3”. Roll out a snake of background clay to use as a triangle shaped filler as you build the pattern mix.
As you build the pattern mix cane you will probably move pieces around to find the best fit. Be sure not to press the pieces too tightly together until you’re ready to commit to their placement.
Fill in gaps with snakes of background clay as needed and remember to keep the cane in a rectangular shape.
Leaf canes can be curved slightly to better fit around round canes.
Once you’ve used up all your component pieces smooth the outside edges by filling in with more snakes of background clay. Build out the corners as well to help keep rounded shapes round as you reduce the cane.
You could wrap the cane in a sheet of background clay, if desired, but I prefer not to. I use pattern mix canes to make veneers and a solid sheet wrapped around the cane at this point would mean a noticeable border between cane slices in the final veneer.
Once you’ve finished packing the pattern mix cane it’s time to reduce. You can reduce just enough to close up all the gaps between component pieces or you can reduce further. Just be careful not to reduce the cane so much that your pattern is too tiny and you can no longer tell what it is. There’s nothing more disappointing than losing all that hard work because you got carried away with reducing. Trust me, I know.
* I learned this trick from a Donna Kato YouTube video and I love it for filling in larger areas where a smaller triangle snake of clay won’t do the trick.
If you’ve enjoyed learning how to make a polymer clay floral pattern mix cane and give this tutorial a try please tag @bysandracallander on Instagram!
As always, if you have any questions or comments, I’m happy to hear from you.