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Here's an easy-to-do variation of Mokume Gane by Kellie Robinson!
Supplies:
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| Roll clay out on thickest setting of pasta machine. Stack and cut to square up edges. Run this stacked sheet through pasta machine on thickest setting. |  |
| Cut the sheet in half, and stack again. You will now have a sheet made up of 4 layers. Run this sheet through pasta machine on the thickest setting. |  |
| Cut the sheet in half again, and stack. You will now have a sheet made up of 8 layers. Run this sheet through pasta machine on the thickest setting. |  |
| Cut this sheet in half yet again, and stack. Now you have a sheet made up of 16 layers of clay. Run the sheet through the pasta machine on the thickest setting. |  Sheet before running through pasta machine for the final time. |
 Sheet after running through the pasta machine for the final time. |
| Choose which texture sheet you want to use. You will get very different results, depending on which one you use! I like the one with dots, because it looks like snakeskin when completed. Mist texture sheet with water, and put your stacked sheet of clay down on it. Run the texture sheet and clay through the pasta machine on the thickest setting. Let this textured sheet of clay rest for awhile before starting on the next step. |  |
| Using a very sharp tissue blade begin to slice off the raised bumps from the textured sheet of clay. Slightly curving your blade helps, and you can brush off those pesky little pieces of clay from the sheet with your fingertip. DON"T slice too deeply!!!!! Once you get all the little bumps sliced off, you can roll this sheet through the pasta machine for a final smoothing. |  |
| This is what the finished sheet of claylooks like. You can now use this to cover a variety of projects. I am going to use mine to cover an Altoid tin! Once it is baked and sanded, it will bring out even more detail in the mini mokume gane. |  |
I owe many thanks to Tom Plattenberger. After a visit to his house one day, and seeing his mokume gane, I went straight home and tried this. Tom makes his in a totally different way...he textures a sheet of clay, then cures it. Then he uses a belt sander to sand off the texture and reveal the design. Since I do not have the power tool collection that Tom has, I had to think up a different way to do this!
Kellie Robinson
©2006 Text and Photos