Tokens ~ Education ~ Making A Flower Cane With Shaded Petals: Part II

Making A Flower Cane With Shaded Petals

Part II: Finding the Center

Step 16

Once you've created the petals, determine how you would like the center of the flower to look. You could make a cane for the center or choose something from your existing collection. I started with the cane shown in the picture. To see how I made this cane, please go to "Making A Shaded Jellyroll Cane."

Step 17

After trying it with my petals, I decided I wanted to have a softer, more intricate look for the center. So, using a leftover portion of the same cane, I reduced and lengthened it, divided it into 7 equal sections, then recombined it as shown in the bottom right-hand corner of the picture. Then I reduced, divided, and recombined it one more time, forming a Lace Cane.

Step 18

After dividing and recombining it twice, I decided to use this as my center.

Step 19

Here is a better view of the recombined cane.

~ Note: These are the basic components of the flower cane. The next thing to do is fill in the gaps between the petals. You might choose to fill it in with a solid color or with translucent. I am going to outline this flower with black. I considered adding some leaf canes between some of the petals to give the flower more 'realism.' However, in the end, I decided that it's grayscale shading called for a more abstract element. The following steps demonstrate how I added a spiral between each petal.

Step 20

I am going to wrap the remainder of the original Shaded Jellyroll Cane in a thick, black outline. To accomplish this, I've rolled out approximately 1 block (2 oz.) of black clay on a medium setting on the pasta machine (#3 on an Atlas). This yielded enough clay for me to add this element, fill in the gaps between the elements and petals, and wrap the entire cane.

Step 21