Hello my sweet honey bunnies and welcome to My mandarin Ducky! Today we are going to make a “Lotus candle holder”. For this project we will need:

• Polymer clay in translucent and green (here I am using Pardo Translucent and my old green scrap clay).

• For the clay tools we will use a Wide blade and the Knife tool. The rubber shaper is optional. • To add up some colour we will need alcohol inks. We will use Surgical spirit to dilute concentrated inks

in a paler tones. • We will also need a plastic colour palette or any other three little plastic trays. • And don’t forget a soft brush and a candle for a finishing touch. • Pasta machine or a rolling pin is essential, too.

For more precise information on tools and materials please read the description below. We will start by conditioning the green scrap clay. You can use a new pack of clay of course, too. I just had this wonderful shade of clay left over from some other project so I decided to use it here. So, condition your clay properly and prepare it for the pasta machine. I usually roll it into a sausage and then flatten it with my fingers before I put it through. My pasta machine is on thickest layer as now we are making a sturdy base for the lotus, i mean the leaves. Conditioned clay sheet should be quite big as we will be cutting out a circular base and five green leaves from it. Here I am using the actual candle to outline the circle. You can use a round clay cutter, too. I will position it here on the left and will continue working on the right. And use your knife tool to cut out five-six free form leaf shaped elements. Pick them up carefully with the wide blade or spatula and softly form a more organic shape by gently pressing with your fingers along the edges of the leaf. Then use your fingers to bend the leaf inwards. When that’s done use your knife tool and gently cut into the leaf surface to create a leaf texture. This is how it should look. When all five leafs are done - place them on the round base symmetrically to form a 5 leaf composition. Curve the outer edges of the leafs to make them more three dimensional. Now it is time for translucent clay. I will use a half of a pack and the hardest part is to condition it properly. Pardo clay though is quite soft but other brands can sometimes be rather hard. When clay is conditioned roll it through the pasta machine on the second from thickest level. For me it’s Nr1 as my thickest is zero. Same as with the leaves we will need to cut out 5 petals to begin with. Later on we will need another ten at least. You will need to make them exactly the same way as you made the leaves. Don’t leave them just flat, we need them to be 3 dimensional to build up the volume of the flower. When the first layer of petals is done use your wide blade to gently pick the whole composition up and place it on a piece of paper and then on your baking tray. Time to bake. Follow the baking instructions on your clay package. While waiting for the baking process to finish I decided to work on all the other petals. I deliberately created them in different sizes as this will make it look more natural. Now the first layer is done and we have the sturdy base for all the other petals. You can see how different clay became after baking. So now it is time to place the second layer of petals on top of what’s already baked. Now it’s time to paint. Take your surgical spirit, your alcohol based inks, a color palette and a brush. Pour some surgical spirit into a little bowl.

Take only one drop of each ink color and drop it into the color palette. Then dip your brush into the surgical spirit and use what’s on the brush to dilute the color. Alternatively as a civilized artist you can use a pipette. I just didn’t have one. Also if you don’t want to have any physical contact with inks and spirits, use rubber gloves. Now to the colorful part. Dip your brush into green color and apply it in the inner part of the petals like I am showing here. If you added too much and clay becomes too wet, use a tissue or dry your brush and collect all the excess paint with it. As you can see you can apply this alcohol based mix on the baked clay as well as on the raw clay. Use the pink color for the outer edges of the petals and make sure it goes through the petal veins which we created with a knife tool recently. In some places inks can mix up and give an orangey/brown color. If you wish to avoid that, touch only the very edges of your petals with ink. I also strongly suggest to practice on one separate petal to see how the mix looks like and how colors blend together. It is time to bake again. I am sure you can make a lotus flower in a way with less baking times, but I like to work in stages and to make sure each stage is done properly. Besides it wouldn’t be as easy to colour every petal once the whole flower is done. So now while everything else is baking I will work on the heart of a lotus. You can create it in any way you want. The main idea is to make the heart of the lotus as big as the base of your candle. I will use my silicone stamp for it. Now it’s time to apply all the rest of the petals and the heart. So many petals formed a gap in the middle and that’s why I placed a piece of leftover clay in there to level it up before I will apply the main middle part. Next we will need to paint all the petals in pink first and then the green color will come. The last element - the heart of the flower should be now placed in the middle and stained too. Before baking for the last time try and arrange the petals in a more 3 diminutional look. Translucent clay as well as all polymer clays when they are soft , tempt to drop down. If you curl up some petals it will make it look more natural. And now the last bake! Phew! We are officially done. Put up that lovely candle on it, light it up and enjoy. You can make them bigger and smaller; you can change the colors and shapes. Brainstorm the ideas, look at real lotus pictures, and search for lotus house decor examples and then jump into the world of creation. If you enjoyed this video you can also watch a couple of my latest videos. Please subscribe to stay updated :) Thanks for watching.