Feelin' Groovy Covered Bottle - Simply Unpredictable

This is my entry for the Polymer Clay Guild of Etsy (PCAGOE) March challenge with the theme "something covered".

Feelin' Groovy covered bottle
6" tall by 2 1/2" square

I have been collecting cool glass jars and bottles for awhile now and when this challenge came up I decided it was a good time to start to upcycle some of them and give them a new life.  I had so many I liked, mmm which to choose?

Stash of glass to cover

I really like the rosy and blue bottles (saki bottles) but I don't think I want to use much clay on those because they are so beautiful by themselves.  For this challenge the object had to be at least 50% polymer clay so they were not going to work.  I finally decided on a balsamic vinegar bottle from Trader Joe's.

Trader Joe's balsamic vinegar bottle

I chose it because the flat sides work perfectly for what I had in mind.  I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do (no drawing first this time!).  But I did know I wanted something unpredictable, nothing neat and lined up and symmetrical. I decided to combine two techniques I recently learned from the Polymer Clay Adventure series.  The techniques involved "Cane Mutiny" with Teresa Pandora Salgado and "Polymer Painting" with Suzanne Ivester. I love the organic work of Salgado's cane work.  Freedom to stretch, twist, is so much fun.  From Ivester I learned how to slice your "canvas" and place what you want where you want it.  Then flatten to a smooth painterly look.  So I started by making some cool organic canes.

In progress

Once the canes were made I sliced them in varying thicknesses.  Some very thick ones I flattened with the pasta machine and ended up with a very large "pedal" to make big "flowers" as a base.  I put these words in quotes, because these are strictly my "pedals" and "flowers" all made up! When I wanted to add a smaller shape over the larger one, I would simply carve the shape of the smaller shape out of the larger one and fill the gap with the new shape - as in polymer painting.  I kept doing this repeatedly on all sides, sometimes layering four and fives times to get the organic look I was after.

I made two tops for the bottle, the one shown above is mounted on a cork, the top pictured below is all polymer clay.

Second top made from all polymer clay

More side views:

Showing both tops

Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing my story.  I would love to hear your comments.