Wood Grain Cane Tutorial

Caning is not my strong suit.  However I will do a simple cane from time to time.  This is something I found when exploring making fairy doors.  I wanted a way to make wood panels with variation of color.
Tools needed:
-work surface
-Pasta Machine
-Stylus/Needle point Tool
-About half a block of Dark Brown, Medium Brown, Gold or Cooper (I typically use Premo but sometimes it's just whatever I have)
-Tissue Blade
-Optional: Pearlx or Mica Powder, Acrylic Paint for antiquing, texture sheet or stamp with spray bottle for small amount of water.
-Dark Scrap Clay

 I typically used a dark brown, medium brown and either gold or cooper (i like cooper better I have found, but gold is pictured).

I make 3 strips:

-Dark Brown: Thickest Setting on pasta machine

-Medium Brown: 2nd to 3rd thickest setting on pasta machine

-Gold/Cooper:  3rd to 4th thickest setting on pasta machine

It really is personal preferrance on how thick you like your grains or perhaps how large the wood panels will be.  These strips are about 2 inches wide and about 7 inches long

I like my strips to be about the same length and the width to be about the same, but I dont trim off my rough edges because it helps with the variation and grain effect.  I stack them on top of each other: Dark brown on bottom, medium brown in middle, gold/cooper on top.

 Then I roll bringing the dark brown up so that it is on the outside of roll.  Reduce

Once reduces I will shape into a square to the size of wood panels I desire. 

This is a side few of the square cane, I am not worried that the colors aren't even.  This outside will not be showing. 

I slice length-wise, look at the pretty wood grain.  There normally is more variation and strips the closer you get into the center.

I use scrap clay to make a base for my wood panels.  I will normally try to use a darker color in case it shows a bit in the cracks.  I do usually antique after the clay is baked so the cracks between the panels are defined as well as the grain.

Here is my door, ready for grain effects and a bit of triming.

I like to draw my grain in because I love looking for the design but if you have a stamp or texture sheet that will also work

On this door I decided I like the rough bottom so I trimmed the scrap clay backing on the bottom so it didnt show but left the cane panels un-trimmed

Sometimes on my doors I will do a frame, for this project I used black clay and a cobble-stone texture sheet.  I spray the texture sheet with a bit of water so the clay releases easily

Here is the stone I will wrap around the door to give it a frame. 

Here is my finished product.  I covered a tin to hold all my molds and cutters I typically use when making fairy doors.  This way i know what tin to grab when I am working on fairy projects.    I used various colors of pearlx powder on the cobble stone.  Then some brown acrylic paint watered down for antique.