One of my favorite polymer clay techniques is the Skinner blend.  It is difficult to imagine what the polymer clay world was like before it!  Since its invention by artist Judith Skinner , polymer clay artists such as Sarah Shriver , Donna Kato , Kathleen Dustin  , and many others  have been using and tweaking this technique to produce remarkable depth, shading and dimension in their work.    

   Many of my canes start with a Skinner blend.   I blend two or more colors just to see what will happen, what cool new color combinations I’ll create.  At this point I usually have no idea what my ‘final product’ will be.   After I get my blend/blends,  I roll up, cut up, and add other elements to the blends and then do some more cutting up, reducing, and reassembling until I get several different cane designs with the same color palette.  In the past, this process was very haphazard and hit-or-miss, but now I spend more time thinking through my color choices, and how I will build the cane components.  My canework has improved thanks to this more disciplined approach. 

    

The following two canes started as a four color Skinner blend using a fall color palette; a brown made from mixtures of various Fimo Soft brown scraps with copper metallic clay added,  Fimo Soft ‘Indian Red’,  a mix of Fimo Soft Lemon Yellow and Sunflower Yellow, and a mix of Fimo Soft ‘Sahara’ and white.  The blend was reshaped into a rectangular block, black stripes were added, then the block was cut in half on the diagonal…the two halves were used to make 2 different canes.  Here are the pictures of the process.  Click on the photos to enlarge them.  If the enlarged image is too big, click on it again to make it a viewable size.  I added an extra lamp to improve the color of the photos, I hope it works !

The canes begin with 4 color Skinner blend; brown to red to yellow to bone/ecru

The blend is rolled up across the colors to make a blend ‘log’.

The blended log is compressed towards the center to form a ‘plug’ shape.

Here’s the Skinner plug shape.

This plug will be reshaped to form a rectangle.

Here is the Skinner blend shaped into a rectangular block.

The Skinner block is sliced into 16 1/8″ inch pieces from dark to light.

Thin sheets of black clay (#6 thickness on Atlas pasta machine) are placed between slices.

This striped block will be divided into 2 triangles. (The sides were trimmed first to ‘neaten’ the block.)

The block is sliced from corner to corner.

Here are the two triangles. Each half will be used to make a different cane.

The light to dark triangle is stretched out and thinned.

The triangle is rolled up like a jellyroll, starting with the dark end.

Here is the striped jellroll, ready to be reshaped.

The jellyroll is reshaped into an equilateral triangle, with the ‘coil’ on top, then reduced.

The jellyroll triangle is cut in half.

The two jellyroll triangle halves are mirrored, then are reshaped to make another equilateral triangle.

This newly formed equilateral triangle is cut in half.

The 2 halves of this triangle are mirrored like this.

Here is a closeup of the mirrored triangles.

The mirrored piece is placed on the work surface and cut into 3 equal pieces.

The three pieces are put together to make this 6 sided cane.

Here’s a closeup of the ’starburst cane’.

I have chosen to reshape and reduce the hexagonal cane as a circle.

Here is the reduced starburst cane. Now the other half of the Skinner blend block will be used to make the pinwheel cane.

The other striped triangle is rolled up into a jellyroll, reshaped into a triangle, reduced, and cut in half.

Here’s a closeup of the 2 pieces, and the orientation they will assume in the finished cane.

Each of the 2 pieces is cut into 3 pieces, yielding 6 triangles, which are lined up like this.

The 6 pieces are arranged to form this hexagon shape.

Here is a closeup of the ‘pinwheel cane’ after it has been reshaped into a circle and reduced.

Here are the starburst and pinwheel canes side by side. Two very different canes from one Skinner blend block.

Here are the 2 canes along with assorted scraps.