Sculpey Polymer Clay Milleflori pattern pen project

This lesson has 2 purposes: Form (the art project) and Function (a purpose). A colored clay-writing pen. The neat thing about this is that students learn to create a “cane” of various patterns with polymer colored clay. Unlike traditional kiln clay, this clay does not harden until put in an oven.
The manufacture of mosaic beads can be traced back to Ancient Rome. Glass canes, a long roll like long Italian bread, have been found as far away as 8th century archaeological sites in Ireland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millefiori
The term milleflori is a combination of Italian words "mille" (thousand) and "fiori" (flowers) thus, meaning “a thousand flowers”. Originally, the milleflori was made from blown tubes of colored glass and then sliced to obtain numerous pieces of the same design. http://www.1492imports.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=13
Now many artisans use poly clay to create this art.

Students created colored canes or “milleflori” with Sculpey polymer clay.
1. Color: use of complimentary color and one color of your choice.
2. Each color will be rolled ‘paper” thin with a marker.
3. The colors will be rolled up.
4. Pattern: 3 inner circles with a large outer circle
5. Line: the use of line creates the shape of a pattern
6. Rolling the wrapped colors is called a “cane”
7. The cane is then sliced many times to produce a pattern colored design.
8. The many slices of colored clay will be adhered to a ‘Bic” pen.
9. When the pen is covered with clay, you will roll the pen to make the clay smooth.
10. This completed pen will be bake in a toaster oven of 250 degrees for 20 mins to 30mins.
11. Form and function: create a work of art with function. Which means the end process is a creative writing pen.