Rainbow Millefiori Cats (b.31 December 2009)

On Hogmanay, I decided to have another go at some millefiori techniques. Here, I took a simple checkerboard pattern and turned it into a rainbow patchwork quilt pattern.

I selected six bright rainbow colours (I decided to leave indigo out to keep more of a distinction between blue and violet), and then after conditioning, I rolled out each on the thickest setting of the pasta machine. After trimming each sheet to the same dimensions, I cut the first sheet in half and stacked it on top of the other half, to made a double thickness (5mm) of the same colour. I repeated this for the remaining colours.

Then I marked off 5mm blocks for each sheet, so that when cut, I would be left with six small square logs of each colour. Then I followed an idea I saw in Kato's book - I started by putting a log of each colour in a row. Then for the next row, I started with the next colour along (ie orange), and finished the row with red. I repeated this until I had used up all the logs, and it created a diagonal chequerboard rainbow pattern. I forgot to take a picture of the finished cane, but here's a picture of a similar cane pictured in Kato's book.

The finished cane was 3cm square, and I then reduced this down to about 2cm by lightly rolling each side with a brayer. It was a little difficult to keep the outside blocks completely square. Once reduced, I cut thin slices from it and applied them to a core of scrap clay. I made the smaller cat first and you can see on the that I placed the slices in such a way as to create a larger rainbow diamond effect, rather than keep the straight diagonal pattern. I placed the cane slices more randomly on the larger cat.

Because the slicese square and quite large, placing them so that they covered a cylindrical clay core neatly and completely was a little challenging. So I decided to introduce an element of randomness to the procedure by lighting rolling each covered core of clay in my hands, which both distorted the cane slices and blended them together. I love the effect this achieved, as it moved away from the precise geometric pattern into some much more fluid and funky.

The tall cat stands 5.5cm tall and the smaller cat is just under 4.5cm. One of my tasks before going back to work is to sort out my Folksy shop, so these may well make an appearance there!

Klimt Millefiori Cat (b.29 December 2009)

As you know, I've been keen to try out more millefiori techniques, and on this occasion, I wanted to try out what Kato calls the Klimt cane technique, after the artist, Gustav Klimt, because of his trademark circles within squares. Although this looks like quite a complicated pattern, it is really quite straightforward. The cane works on the basis of what happens when you extrude clay using a clay gun with a square die.

I selected eight random colours, ranging from pinks and reds through to beige and brown, and then rolled them into logs, making them as close to the diameter of the barrel as possible. I then cut slices from each cane, approximately 3mm thick, and stacked those slices together in a new log. I kept the colours random, but tried to make sure I kept constrasting colours next to each other.

Once the composite log was complete, I rolled it lightly again to make sure it would fit snugly inside the clay gun. It took a bit of trial and error to get the right diameter, and I had to resize the log a couple of times. (As I found out, it's important to make sure the slices have adhered to each other before putting the log into the barrel, as it's sometimes necessary to pull it out again to get it to the right diameter.)

Once the log was in place, I used a square die and extruded all the clay. Because of the force used to extrude the clay through a small aperture, this resulted in concentric circles of different colour clay being framed in a square log. The outside of the log pretty much kept the same colour of the first disc of coloured clay (purple in this case), which I found to be quite amazing. I'm looking forward to experimenting with different shades of clay and different shapes of die to see what other effects I can come up with.

I cut the resultant very long, thin, square cane into 16 equal lengths, and stacked each length on top of each other in four rows of four, flipping some of them over so the pattern was different from adjacent lengths. Then I lightly rolled this square cane with a roller to adhere the blocks together, and cut thin slices to cover the core of scrap clay. Because the cane is quite large, it was easy to do large areas of the cat, but filling in the small gaps using single squares reshaped to fit was a bit more fiddly.

A light sanding down and a couple of coats of satin varnish finished him off, and now Klimt Millefiori Cat stands at 5.5cm tall, proudly showing off his fine multi-coloured coat!

Update: On New Year's Day, I made a Roly Poly Klimt Millefiori Cat to join his big brother using what was left of the cane. He measures 2.5cm all round and he wants to grow up to be 5.5cm tall too!

Starry Night Cats (b.19 December 2009)

I've been wanting to experiment more with canework of late, and I recently bought a copy of Donna Kato's The Art of Polymer Clay: Millefiori Techniques. I can't say I'm a great fan of her designs, and her self-promotion throughout the book can be a little OTT at times (she is the Donna Kato of Kato Polyclay) but there's no denying that her techniques are superb and I'm bursting with ideas!