Cane Method
1. Choose the colours you would like to use for your eyes, any clay will do but add a little mix quick when mixing the colours so that the clay is very strong.
2. I have a photograph of an eye to use as reference, you don’t have to stick exactly to your reference but it helps to have something to match the colours to.
3. After you’ve mixed the colours according to your reference, twist them together like this…
4. Once twisted, mould the shape into a log like this…
5. Add your surrounding colours for the outer part of the iris, attach them around the central ‘log’ . Make sure that you do this evenly all around or your iris will not be round with the pupil in the centre at the end.
6. Take the second to darkest colour according to your photo reference and roll it thinly, if you have a pasta machine use the setting 6 or 7.
7. Attach this around the eye-log you are making, don’t overlap it at any point or it will not be even at the end.
8. Now do the same with the darkest colour, you may not need to do the outer darkest colour if the eye reference you are using doesn’t have it, its up to you.
9. Start to roll out your cane, you need to start from the middle and move outwards, you will also need to cut it smaller as you go or you will end up with such a long piece that it will be hard to control.
10. Don’t roll the log to the thinnest point in the centre from the beginning, use your thumb and first finger to roll from the middle outwards and once you have an even log like above, cut it into two pieces. I store the extra piece as a fat log for the future.
11. This would be around the right size I need, you will know what size you need according to the size figure you are making. These are around 3mm.
12. Put the roll in the fridge for about half an hour to stiffen it up and then cut little slices off the roll. Place these on a glass baking dish.
13. Use a sculpting tool to pat the disk you have cut back into a circle if it has lost its shape a little for slicing it.
14. Find something that will make a tiny indentation, I use a tool designed for nail art, it should be smaller than you think it needs to be because the globe you apply at the end will magnify everything.
15. Make an indentation in the MIDDLE of the first colour log you mixed, in this case it would be the green and ochre colour, and make sure its not too deep, just deep enough to hold a tiny bit of paint. Put your dish of irises in the oven and cure for about 15 minutes until they are strong.
16. You will need some GLOSSY black paint that is heat resistant, this is glass paint.
17. Paint each indentation with a liberal amount of the black paint and allow to dry, it doesn’t matter if it forms a drop if paint, that’s good it will make sure it fills the hole you made.
18. Once the paint is dry take some acetone on a cotton bud and rub the paint away lightly.
19. Rubbing lightly will ensure that just enough is left for the black ‘pupil’ were the paint is left in the indentation you made earlier.
20. You are now ready to attach a lens!
21. I store my extra canes for eyes in tubs according to colour like this...
