Most of the time I make rose and other flower canes. They’re pretty, they’re typically symmetrical and they’re fast to make up, once you have the know how. I could make flowers all day! Actually, some days I do.
Bug canes are the reverse. I am not a fan of bugs, even the pretty ones, in real life. Like flowers, they’re sort of grown on me since I’ve begun caning. To make insect canes is a lot more work than flowers – there are usually more than two sub canes – sometimes, five or six – and there are usually several steps of reduction and combining. All of those factors make for big canes that can result in a huge pile of waste clay (bug guts anyone?) if you botch steps. So I make a bug for about every fifty or sixty flower canes I do!
This weekend, I made two. And there are a few others in stages – it’s disturbing, I have little bug bodies and antennae and wings on my desk that I had better not swat! – of production. Hanging out with the bug in the picture is the dark toned ‘marigold’ I made this weekend. The light tone one is coming up!
