It’s been about six months, or a little longer, since I’ve made a cane. On Sunday I made this leaf. Needless to say I’m not pleased. Yes, Virginia… we are not amused. :/
But I thought it might be helpful to my readers if I went through the evaluation of the cane here online before stuffing it in the scrap bin. To talk about some of the things that caused this cane to go oh-so-wrong. Perhaps it’ll help both of us next time.
The very first problem I had is one that isn’t visually discernable unless you’re very familiar with canework. The consistency (or more accurately, inconsistency) of the three colors of clay caused the first problem. I’d made these canes with recycled clay; that means I’d used old canes to create the three colors. Initially, I wasn’t aware there was a discrepancy. It wasn’t until the clay had warmed up during the blending phase that I realized I had my first problem. The darker colors were much firmer than the light color. Uh-oh!
So when I discovered that, what should I have done? Well, truly, I should have cut the blend apart and either changed the softer clay for a firmer one, leached the softer clay and then picked up the blending again, or chosen softer dark colors to work with. I really shouldn’t have continued working with it the way it was. If you click on the image you can see a larger view of the cane. Do you see the “tree ring” effect on the blend? This was caused by improper blending, which was caused by the softness/hardness problem. You see, the softer the clay, the easier it is to blend. And vice versa. Soft clay butted against firm clay is just asking for problems. Because the firm clay won’t want to blend into the softer clay. You’ll crank and fold and crank and fold until your arms get tired, and that firm clay won’t hardly have budged an inch. It just keeps pushing the softer clay away from itself.
Then why did I keep going? Well… because with many rules there are exceptions or workarounds. I knew that with a leaf cane like this, since it’s only a single blended roll, it’s not such a big deal if the consistency of the colors is a -little- off. if I put the softer clay toward the outside when I rolled it, that I might lose some of the softer clay to reduction, but the interior would probably be fine. And I wasn’t really willing to chop the blend up and start over. A combination of feeling awful cocky because I’m pretty good at making canes; feeling excited about getting back into cane making again; a bit of being tired after a long day; and a bit of liking the muted, grayed colors quite a bit. So I went against my own better judgement and kept going with the blend, knowing full well that I had a problem on my hands.
The second issue is with the veins. I didn’t trim the shaded roll before putting the veins in! I just chose to go with the darker color without really taking a good look at the percentages of color in the blended roll I had made. Had I trimmed the ends and looked at the shaded roll, I would have realized that the darker colors took over much more of the roll than I’d anticipated. Armed with that knowledge, I wouldn’t have chosen the gray-green color to do the veins with; I’d have chosen the pale yellow-green instead. And in spite of the poor blending, the lighter veins may have subdued that a bit by the lighter color coming to the foreground, and it could have saved the cane.
When assembling a cane, it really helps to have at least one of the ends of a cane to be constantly trimmed during the process. Add a section, and trim. Add another section, and trim. It helps me to see exactly where I’m at, particularly with outlining details. I make crucial shape and color choices based on that information, adjusting the cane as needed. But… again those psychological/physical factors kicked in. It’s sortof like going down a steep hill on a skateboard and losing control… instead of jumping off and taking a few lumps, I was fascinated by the train wreck about to happen and stayed the course just to find out how bad it was really going to be. Once I realized I was in trouble, I didn’t go through the extra steps to recover from my mistakes, to work carefully, to try and make the best of the bad situation. I just continued along, rushing through it like I often do in my overconfidence.
Now on the bright side, I’ll hang onto a piece of this cane before sending the rest to the Bead Guts pile. I’d like to recreate the cane again, with the same color scheme. When I do, I’ll have the piece of this cane with me so I can refer back to it and hopefully avoid the same mistakes a second time.
