Hi everybody
I've been meaning to post something up on this for ages now .... a few people have asked about what I do flower cane wise ... so here's my basic recipe.
The same principle applies to any cane at all and the more you play around the more amazing the flower petals can be. I thought I'd start with the yellow flowers. Each time I do them, I use different tones so there is not a colour number to give you as such ... what I do do though, is to aim for contrasting colours within the range of yellows/pinks/blues/whatever.
1. I start off with a clear rod of boro/pyrex and melt that up into a ball and flatten it to give a surface (a punty) on top of which I start building up the cane.
2. Then I build up a layer about 1/4 inch thick of clear moretti glass .... this of so that after the cane is built, and pulled, the waste glass at the ends isn't the cane colour but just clear junk you might not have wanted anyway.
3. then I start melting enough white onto the centre of that flattened surface area ... and shape/marver into a rod about as thick as an index finger and as long as you think you can cope with. I think start with about 1/2 an inch. You want it to be nice and round and flat at the top.
4. then get about 3 or 4 different shades of the colour eg. for this flower it was light yellow; dark yellow; and maybe a striking tspnt orange or yellow, and for this cane I also put in a bit of white. Keeping the glass on the punty rotating to keep the heat even, start adding the main colours by striping them vertically around the middle white core. I usually melt the end of the colour/rod I am about to apply, attach it onto the punty right next to the core and stripe vertically upwards along the core and melting off the end at the level of the end of the white core. Vary your colour depths evenly around the white core.
5. When all that is done and you have covered the white core completely with all the colours you want, melt the whole lot nicely and evenly until it is all smooth.
6. Start really heating the whole thing up and slowly marver and marver into a skinnier longer piece ... as you marver it and turn it, you will be aiming to lengthen the glass and make it skinnier. It doesn't matter if the vertical colours of glass gets distorted. Work it to a smaller point.
7. Grab the end with tweezers and start to twist the punty in one direction only and pull with the tweezers to make lengths of stringer which will have the pattern come out twisted.
IF THIS ISN'T MAKING SENSE ...
.... JUST DROP IN AND I'LL SHOW YOU ... GO PAST THE SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE AND THEN TURN RIGHT ... K?
Marie-Claude
Making petal canes
Linear Mode
