Doodle No. 28 Moth Fractal

3.5” by 5.5”

Moths and a few copies of my dog, Kepler, inhabit a #fractal. The lizards and other doodles along the sides and top are very much in the style of Marty Kenney. 

The last several pieces I’ve done have a lot of coloring, a lot of pigment. This time I tried to use light colors with a lot of white, in part, to see if it would take less time to color, and it did! I’m sure I’ll go back to my saturated colors though. I love color, but this pink is nice for a change.

Drawn with archival #Prismacolor black ink and Faber-Castell #Polychromos pencils on #Stonehenge 250 GSM 100% cotton paper. 

Original available: https://www.etsy.com/listing/717151343/

Doodle No. 5 Dog Planet

There is a planet that is only populated with dogs. One of its moons is all cats. In fact, the dogs on Dog Planet look just like my dog, and I used to have a gray cat that looked a lot like the cat on Moon Cat.

None of this is a coincidence.

There is a little bit of Marty Kenney in every seahorse I draw, and the lizards too. Or maybe they’re crocodiles. It’s hard to know without a scale. The angler fish and the fox just showed up, and I’m pretty sure the spider has always lived there.

This piece is sold.

This is my dog Kepler, the guy in the moon. He’s softer than he looks, which means a he’s ridiculously soft.

Thanks for looking. 

Doodle No. 6 Rainbow Black Hole

Black holes collect all colors of light.

And cats. 

This image size of this piece is 5” by 7”. 

Here is the detail of the lizard.  He’s very quiet and doesn’t eat much. 

This drawing is available in my Etsy shop.

You can buy t-shirts and other things printed with this drawing here: https://gwenbeads.threadless.com/designs/doodle-no-6-rainbow-black-hole

Doodle No. 4 Alien Planet

Here is my newest doodle. I spent more time coloring this time and made the colors more vibrant.
This piece is 5” by 7”.
This piece is sold.

Doodle No. 3

Another doodle. The composition on this one gave me a lot of grief. There’s no going back when you’re working in ink. It was everything I could do to not fill the entire page, but I think I’m going to stop and call it done. The design in the curved strip on the bottom left in orange, that design idea was taken directly from one of Marty Kenney’s drawings. And the sea horse. Marty also liked to draw aliens. His aliens look different from mine, but I bet our aliens would be friends if they ever met.

Doodle No. 2

This is my second doodle.

There is a little bit of Marty Kenney in every seahorse I draw. Marty also had a passion for alien handwriting. So the legend on the right was also inspired by his work. 

This piece is sold. 

You can buy t-shirts and other things printed with this image here: https://gwenbeads.threadless.com/designs/doodle-no-2

Thanks for looking. 

A doodle I made while remembering Marty Kenney

I started doodling again for the first time in a long time. This piece is ink on paper.

My good friend Marty Kenney took his own life a few weeks ago. In addition to being a kind and loving man, he was also an incredibly talented artist. (For those of you who remember the Genie Bottle, Marty did all of the designs for the laser cutwork in the wood.) I recently spent a few treasured hours looking through his sketchbooks. His doodles and designs filled my head to the point that I dreamt about them. When I returned home, I drew this. Some of the design elements here are definitely inspired by his, like the seahorse and the lizards, the squiggles and dots.

You’ll be seeing a lot more doodles from me as I remember my friend.

Felt Bowl Beaded with Wool Felt Sweater Scraps

I finished this felt bowl using the method I described in my last post.

It's mostly wool with a little cashmere, measuring about 9.5" across and 0.75" thick. I'm not sure what I think of it. It's soft and squishy but a little wonky. The pattern of circles comes from an arrangement of dimples on a golf ball.

Here is what it looked like after I got started.

This is the pile of strips I used.  That's 246 strips of wool and cashmere felt, plus a few extras, all cut from old sweaters.

Thanks for looking.

Preview of the Solstice Earrings

I'm finishing a new tutorial for what I'm calling Solstice Earrings. Here's a little preview of some of the variations.

Beaded Cube Math Lesson for Kids

Several people have asked me to write a math lesson for kids using beading. The challenge is to make something mathematically interesting with bead weaving that can be completed within a single lesson, under an hour, preferably less.

So I wrote this lesson on beaded cubes (PDF). The lesson begins with some background on what a beaded cube is with lots of drawings and a photo. It uses terms like edge, face, vertex, and graph of a cube. The second section gives step-by-step instructions for how to bead weave a cube with a needle, string, and pony beads. After finishing this lesson, students will have practiced basic sewing skills like measuring thread, threading a needle, and tying square knots. The final section provides several math and spatial reasoning "challenges" to extend learners' thinking about beaded cubes.

This lesson teaches several things, especially spatial reasoning, where the learner has to move back and forth between a 2D representation on paper to the 3D model in their hands. It also teaches the importance of carefully following instructions because every step is laid out, and if you skip one of them, your work won't look like what is on the paper. The challenges encourage students to build different symmetric coloring of a cube, extend the construction to a row of cubes, and think about a minimal thread path.

I taught this lesson at the Julia Robinson Math Festival and another version at MoMath. With just 12 beads, this task is not easy, but it is enticing, approachable, and engaging for children, especially girls, and boys like it too, as do their moms and dads. It seems appropriate for children as young as fourth grade, and most of them generally need a good amount of help, but they can do it with coaching. Fifth and six graders have a bit easier time with it.  Interestingly enough, my experience in teaching this lesson to adults and children is that it is not any easier for a typical adult than it is for a typical fifth or sixth grader. In fact, I watched one man get completely lapped by his fifth grade daughter today. GO GIRL MATH POWER!

Here are the materials you need to teach a group of kids:

Pony beads
Size 18 tapestry needles, one per student
String: Cotton is good.  Something thin enough to fit through the eye of the needle, but thick enough to provide some friction.
Magnetic pin cushion: an easy way to collect the needles
Snips or scissors: I tied them to the end of some crazy yarn so they wouldn't disappear.
Beaded samples
Ruler(s)
Cups or bowls to hold beads
Hand outs: I designed the PDF file to be printed once, and then photocopied onto two sides of a sheet of paper, with one sheet per student.  Print the PDF file for best quality, not the jpgs.

I encourage you to try this lesson with your own students or children. If you have anything meaningful to contribute to making it better, please do not hesitate to send me an email or leave a comment below. If you want to see what else you can do with beaded cubes, you should search for my blog for CRAW or "cubic right angle weave" because a beaded cube forms the basic unit of one of my favorite bead weaving stitches.  Also search Planet Bead to see the many beautiful things that have been beaded with cubes.

If you think this lesson is useful, consider showing your support by perusing my Etsy shop, gwenbeads and buying yourself a little something special. You deserve it.

Thanks for looking. You're awesome. Yes, you!

Edited to add: Emilie Pritchard suggests using long plastic beads, called "spaghetti" beads, to help visualize the edges of the cube. Search the internet to find them for sale.

Octahedral Cluster

This is a recent example of one of my all time favorite beaded bead designs, the Octahedral Cluster. Octahedral Clusters all have six stars, like the 6 faces of a cube.  In the beaded bead below, I colored two of the stars silver.

I colored two of the stars black and two of them gold.  Each pair lies on opposite faces.

The points of the stars come together three at a time, one star of each color. There are 8 places on the beaded bead that look just like this.  Four of them are identical, and the other four are mirror images of this.

The beaded bead has the symmetry of an octahedron, which is the same as the symmetry of a cube. Knowing this, you might wonder if this beaded bead is really an octahedron, as I told you, or maybe, it is really a cube. If we look at the largest beads (in green), there are 12 of them.

That could be useful because cubes have 12 edges, but so do octahedrons. In fact, the holes are line segments.  So if you look at the holes of the largest beads, and you extend those lines so that the lines intersect, you will form the 12 edges of an octahedron.  For that reason, I think it is an octahedron, and that is why I call it an Octahedral Cluster.

Here you can see how big it is.

Do you want it?  This beaded bead is for sale.

Do you want to make your own?  The tutorial for the Cube and Octahedral Clusters is available. If you make one of each, then you will really see the difference.

New Tutorial - Baroque Cube Beaded Beads and Earrings Made with Peyote Stitch

I love beaded beads, and one of my favorite inspirations for them is the symmetry of a cube.  This version is one of my smallest and most detailed.  Since the design is based upon the structure of a cube, each beaded bead has 6 holes running through its center. 

This tutorial will show you how to weave little beaded beads with seed beads and little drops.  Using just a pinch of each color, these beaded beads are a great way to use up leftover seed beads from other projects. The little beaded beads on the earrings use mostly size 15° seed beads.

This tutorial is suitable for intermediate bead weavers who know how to do tubular (circular) peyote stitch. Presented are the two variations shown. This is the larger version made with mostly size 11° seed beads.

Both are stiff and quite small for such detailed beaded beads.  Side length of each cube on the earrings is just 13 mm (1/2 inch), and for the larger ones on the necklace, they are just 17 mm. The larger version are still small enough for bracelets and necklaces. I like them simply strung on cord with lampwork glass.

See how small the earrings are, just the way I like them!  They're fancy enough to be noticed, but small enough that I hardly can tell I'm wearing them.

Each beaded bead contains over 300 beads, each precisely woven into place.
The tutorial is available in my Etsy shop, or if you'd just like to have these earrings and not make them, check out my earrings section to find yourself a pair.

Thanks for looking!

New Tutorial - Coral Cube Beaded Bead

Here's my newest beading tutorial.  This one shows you how to weave elaborate beaded beads with seed beads and round beads. 

The design is based upon the structure of a cube and, as such, has 6 large (6 mm) holes running through its center. Yes, those are huge holes for a beaded bead, and they go through every face.  I think they look like clusters of coral, hence the name, Coral Cube.

The beaded beads are hollow and stiff, and come in three versions.

This tutorial is suitable for intermediate to advance bead weavers who know how to do tubular (circular) peyote stitch and increases. I don't think the easiest one is too terribly difficult, but they do take a few hours to make.  Peyote stitch... that's a lot of stitches, but the materials aren't fancy, just regular seed beads and round beads. No fancy shapes required, so you can work from your stash.  Thanks for looking.

New Tutorial - Delta Queen Necklace with Beaded Pendant and Toggle Clasp

I just released my newest tutorial, and I admit I'm quite pleased with it.  It's one of the most involved tutorials I've ever written.  This tutorial explains how to weave the Delta Queen Necklace with beads and thread.

A dramatic pendant hangs from a thick cable of beads.

The necklace is finished with a beaded toggle clasp, a new clasp design created just for this necklace. Everything is woven with honeycomb weave (with a bit of herringbone weave), including the Daisy Chain Cable. Honeycomb weave like right angle weave (RAW), but with other angles. You don’t need to know RAW to follow this tutorial, but you do need to know how to weave the Daisy Chain Cable, shown below. If you don’t know the Daisy Chain Cable, you can find it in my Etsy shop here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/225147305/

To the best of my knowledge, honeycomb weave was first introduced in my paper, Using tiling theory to generate angle weaves with beads on page 21 as an example of a 2-across-edge angle weave.  In particular, honeycomb weave uses the tiling by regular hexagons, and the hexagons are very visible at the top of the pendant.  It's always been one of my favorite weaves in that paper, but it's taken me until now to design something with it.  I'm sure it won't be my last use of this weave.

This Delta Queen Necklace tutorial is a long project, suitable for intermediate to advanced bead weavers who are already very comfortable with the Daisy Chain Cable. The tutorial is a PDF file with 31 pages, including over 160 photos and illustrations. That's a lot of steps, but I think it's a fun project because you're not doing a billion repeats of the same thing (except the necklace cable.  That has a lot of repeats).  There are lots of different elements, and that gives you the chance to make lots of different coordinating components that all assemble into a single finished necklace.  Also, you don't need any fancy bead shapes, so you can really play with color rather than wasting time trying to track down that one weird bead shape in just the right color.

Can I tell you?  I'm really happy it's finally done... Although part of me wants to make another one of these necklaces, I'm also ready to move on to the next project because I've got a bunch more ideas for flat weaves that I'm really itching to try.

Thanks for looking!

Conway Bead with Dodecahedron 5-Coloring of Vertices

This Conway Bead is a beaded bead, woven from blue, green, purple, and silver seed beads in different shapes including drops and O-beads. This ornate cluster is composed of nearly 400 beads, each one precisely woven into place. I used five different colors for the background, giving the piece an interesting symmetry where every hole touches each color exactly once. 

If you look at just one of the colors, say lime green, for example, they form the vertices of a regular tetrahedron.  Since there are five colors, there are five tetrahedrons.  Thomas Hull has made an origami model of five intersecting tetrahedrons that exhibits the same coloring as my beaded bead.

You can see Thomas Hull's folding instructions here: http://mars.wne.edu/~thull/fit.html.
Here is a 3D printed version of the same model by George Hart. 

I tried beading one of these orderly tangles a long time ago, and failed after several attempts, but that shouldn't stop you from trying!  It's a real puzzle.

Anyway, my little Conway Bead is very round and hollow. The shape reminds me of a virus. 

It measures just 21 mm (> 3/4 inch) in diameter, suitable for a focal bead on a necklace.

There are a couple of different ways to string this, and the largest hole is 2 mm wide, wide enough to accommodate a thick cord or chain.  I also made a pair of matching earrings using my Iris Drop Earrings Tutorial.

If you would like to learn how to make your own Conway Beads, I have a tutorial here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/189075857/

This beaded bead is for sale.  Click on the photos to see the listing.  Thanks for looking!

New Tutorial Slugs in Love Earrings and Pendants

Meet my slugs.

Slugs in Love.

These beaded, sparkling, spiraling slugs are very twisted and sensuous. It's hard to capture their beauty in a single photo.

You see?

What could be more romantic than two slugs in love?

How about three slugs in love?  See the three slugs on the left in gold, orange and red?  I call this one Slug Fest with a little slug earring for the dangle.

I was inspired by the colors of lava.  To me, it looks like frozen flame.  All of the variations shown above are patterned and explained in my newest beading tutorial, Slugs in Love.  I even give a recipe for a five (5) Slug Fest in the tutorial, if you are so adventurous to try it.   I haven't made one yet.  It's a lot of beads. 

These beaded slugs are super fun to make, to watch them spiral a little more, as you make each stitch.  I really hope someone makes the five slug version, just so I can see a photo of it.

If you're wondering why I call this Slugs in Love, you should watch this video on the mating behavior of slugs. 

 And this one with snails.  It's totally worth two minutes.

Or this one, which I laughed all the way through.

For some reason, my friends keep sending me links to terrestrial gastropod mollusc porn.  

Anyway... The technique I use for my beaded slugs isn't original.  I learned about it after Pamm Horbit showed me some of her pieces including, "Max's Not a Knot," here.  This piece is actually a lidded box - the lid comes off.  It placed 2nd in the accessories and objects division of Bead Dreams 2012.

You see, last Fall, I spoke to the Northwest Bead Society in Washington State, and Pamm attended my lecture and took my classes.  She had a big box of these twisted balls, cubes, and other highly symmetric pieces of beadwork that she made, using all sorts of different point group symmetries, especially chiral ones. They ranged in size from tennis balls to softballs.  Each one was more spectacular than the next, all twisting and sinuous.  Pamm had found a basic beaded unit in photos on line, and from there, she figured out how she could make lots of repeats and assemble them in lots and LOTS of different ways.  Her collection was quite diverse and impressive.
  
I could scarcely see out how she did it.  But she was patient with me as I tried to figure out what I was holding in my hand as it glistened under the lights.  She explained the essence of the idea, and even was kind enough to give me a couple of triangles that are beaded with this technique.  It turns out it's based on the peyote stitched triangles (google it!), but the ones Pamm gave me used different sizes of beads to make them spiral, like the Celline spiral, made popular by Susan Golden, when she published the Cellini spiral bracelet in the Art and Elegance of Beadweaving in 2003.  Here's the Cellini spiral I made in 2005 with Golden's directions.  I never finished it.  It's a half bracelet, unwearable, but I like that you can see inside the spiral.

What Pamm showed me is that you can apply this same technique to beaded triangles.  So I beaded this green triangle using the samples Pamm gave me. 

But, I didn't finish the back correctly.  What can I say?  It was my first one, and by the time I finished it, there was nobody there to tell me how to do it.

I played around with the idea by changing the symmetry, and came up with these earrings.

I made a pair for myself in purple, and I fell in love with this photo and the earrings.  They are so tiny and dainty.  Just a splash of color dripping from the ears. 

I named them Archimedes' Teardrops because of it's relationship with the Archimedian spiral.  To skip the math, please jump to the next paragraph now.  An Archimedian (or arithmetic) spiral is the locus of points corresponding to the locations over time of a point moving away from a fixed point with a constant speed along a line which rotates with constant angular velocity.  The relationship with the beadwork is that you end up with a constant set of beads that is constantly repeated as you rotate around the fixed, central axis.  I think that works.  Anyway, I had to name it.

Then I made this piece that I didn't know what to do with.  It's not a really beaded bead because it doesn't have an obvious hole.  It's just a beaded thing, and a bit slug-like.

So I posed it with Batman.  Behold the power of the BEADS!

Then, I illustrated, and wrote a complete tutorial for my little Teardrop earrings, and as I was releasing it, another bead designer pointed me to June Huber's website, where she had a pattern for the same earrings.  The only difference are that Huber used Delicas where I used size 15° seed beads and her hanging method is different.  I even took this photo before I saw Huber's photo of nearly the same design in her earring tutorial.  Hmm.

I surfed around Huber's website, and found that she did a lot with the technique of peyote stitch with herringbone increases, like this Arabesque cube.  (Seriously, click on that, it's gorgeous).  Shortly thereafter, I noticed that Cath Thomas also wrote a tutorial for the same earring and her variations: Pepper Fork and Yukka Flower.

That all happened last Fall. I made up something new that wasn't new at all.  I was a little sad because I put so much work into it, but I knew I couldn't release a tutorial that someone else had written before me.  It didn't matter that I made it up by myself.  I hadn't made it up first.  It wasn't mine to distribute.  

But I really loved these spirals, and I wanted to design with the technique.  So, I didn't toss out the tutorial completely.  I just shelved it.  I chalked it up to a learning experience.  Since then, I've been trying to design a new variation, something that is different enough and new enough that it wouldn't be copies of what the great beaders before me had already done.  

So I reconsidered the symmetry.  Where Huber, Horbit and Thomas all ADDED symmetry to their designs, Slugs in Love took it away. 

I found a different unit of repeats, and then made it have a lot of different beads, big fat slugs instead of tiny, dainty ones.

If you're so inclined, you could take one of the basic units I patterned in Slugs in Love, make copies of it, and try to recreate Arabesque cubes, and other polyhedra and flowers, but bigger, much bigger.  Warning: That's a lot of beads!  And please, Please, PLEASE, I really can't stress this enough... Send me a photo if you try it! Thanks for looking.