Doodle No. 19 Cat Planet

The colors are very 2019, including by Pantone’s 2019 Color of the Year, Living Coral. 

8” by 10” 

Faber-Castell Polychromos colored pencils and Prismacolor black ink on Stonehenge paper

This piece is sold, but you can buy swag if you want!  I made stickers you can find in my Etsy shop here https://www.etsy.com/listing/713103849/doodle-sticker-collection

Also, I designed this piece specifically to be printed on shirts, stickers, mugs, etc., which you can find here. Www.gwenbeads.threadless.com I just ordered a shirt for myself in blue. It’s quite nice for twenty bucks. Sadly, the ladies fitted large is too big for me. So I have it to my sweetie. 


I’m not sure what this contraption does, but it obviously has a lot of functionality. 

Forgive the bit of reflection on the cat’s face. I have it temporarily sealed in plastic to keep it safe. 

Doodle No. 15 Pitchfork Bifurcation

Doodle No. 15

Pitchfork Bifurcation

Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils

Neenah acid free paper, 80 lb

5” by 7” image on 7” by 9” paper

I have a complicated relationship with yellow. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the yellow and orange bedroom I had as a child. Everything was covered in a print of orange and yellow California poppies, and all of the furniture was painted yellow. Tying it altogether was a huge carpet in a perfect shade of yellow mustard. After the yellow experience, I had more than my fair share for years, and I didn’t like orange much either. I eventually brought orange back into my pallet a number of years ago after a friend successfully convinced me that bright orange is the color of happiness. Yet, that yellow carpet haunted me. With this piece I decided to put my biases aside and go full yellow mango on the background. 

Overall, this color palette is very 2019. Search for “color pallet 2019.” And you’ll find these colors. So if you don’t like them yet, you should reconsider.

The pitchfork bifurcation was the kind of thing I studied in my graduate abstract algebra course. The class had something to do with resolving “bad” points in the solution set for an equation by introducing another variable and changing your point of view. I didn’t really understand the symbolic representations and manipulations very well, but I could reproduce the kinds of pictures in the textbook in great detail. My professor seemed to think that showed enough understanding of the material for me to pass the class. It seems the biggest change between then and now is the cat. 

And yellow. 

And a lizard for Marty. 

This original is sold.

Thanks for looking.

Doodle No. 14 Seahorses Fall in Love

Seahorses fall in love while visiting the second moon of Planet Coral. 

I tried to step away from the rainbows for this piece. The colors are contemporary, including Pantone’s 2019 Color of the Year, Live Coral. One tiny rainbow still snuck in, as they do. 

8” by 10” Prismacolor ink and Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils on 108 lb Borden & Riley Paper

This piece is sold.

Pentacluster Beaded Bead in Live Coral

I always enjoy playing with Pantone’s color combinations. Here is their 2019 Color of the Year, Live Coral, featured in the colors combo called Coral Woman by hep svadja. It’s not exact, but just my interpretation.

Find this Pentacluster Beaded Bead.
Learn to make your own Cluster Beads.

Inspired by Opals - Beaded Textile Bangle Bracelet No. 57 Felted Wool Silk

I love opals, and I adore artwork that looks like opals, art that is almost white but has subtle colors, to make it not just white. Yesterday, I was pouring over some white-ish polymer clay art by Richelle of Shipwreck Dandy.  (Photos used with permission.)
 

Aren't they pretty? Drooling over these babies, I was inspired to make something like that, art that appears to have an inner glow, but I don't have any polymer clay. I do have wool and silk, however, in a nice array of colors. So, I made this bangle bracelet.

Silk and some sparkle fiber give it a nice luminosity. You can't tell from the photos, but it shimmers. Felt is a perfect base for some bead embroidery. So I added some real opals beads and seed beads in one spot.

There are also some Swarovski crystals and more seed beads.

I'm actually quite tickled that the finished piece met my vision. 

These pieces are for sale.  Click on the photos to go to the listings.  Thanks for looking!

I can't stop beading Ginkgo Leaf Earrings

Fifteen pairs of Ginkgo Leaves later, and I'm still making them.  They are such a fun way to play with colors!

I made this pair on the airplane, one earring going out, and one coming home. 

You can find this pair here in my Etsy shop.  I also have a tutorial for the Ginkgo Leaf Earrings for sale if you would like to learn to make your own.

New Tutorial - Ginkgo Leaf Earrings Beaded with a Variation of Cubic Right Angle Weave

With nothing more than seed beads and thread, make these Gingko Leaf Earrings with this original variation on Cubic Right Angle Weave (CRAW). This tutorial is very detailed, written for advanced beginner beaders who have a basic knowledge of beading. Knowledge of CRAW is strongly recommended.

Each leaf is nearly inch wide (23 mm) and 20 mm tall. They’re small, and CRAW creates a lot of negative space. So they’re light, making them comfortable to wear as earrings.

The tutorial is 14 pages, with over 90 full color illustrations and photographs, a COLORFUL FEAST for the eyes. The tutorial gives highly detailed illustrations, photographs, and written instructions to make the earrings. Included are 14 different pairs of Gingko Leaf Earrings in different color schemes. That I have made so many pairs is a testament to how much fun these are to make and wear. Since they use mostly size 11° seed beads with just a few colors of 15° and 8° they are a wonderful way to explore color combinations with just seed beads.

I beaded Ginkgo Leaves from time to time for over three years before I figured out how to write it down on paper. In my blog, I said I'd be "insane" to write a tutorial for this design. This is actually because I didn't really understand how to do it. As I posted more and more pairs of these earrings on the internet, bead weavers wrote to me, asking me to write a tutorial. So, I kept making pairs and eventually, I drew some pictures, and my method became clearer to me. Months passed, and I made more pairs, and drew more drawings. Then I made more pairs and eventually I understood the method, and I was able to draw all of the steps in a way that makes sense. Then I took photos to match the drawings, and wrote it all up. This tutorial is the culmination of a long process to document these earrings so that other bead weavers can enjoy making them too. This tutorial is also super colorful. I used a rainbow pair for the step photos and illustrations in the hopes that you will enjoy looking at this the tutorial as much as making and wearing the earrings.

Ginkgo Earrings in Pantone's 2016 Color of the Year, Rose Quartz Serenity Lint

Last night I tried playing around with the ‪Pantone 2016 Color of the Year. 

This year they picked Rose Quartz, so pale pink. So I used a sparkling pale pink cubic zirconia at the top of each earring, and a row of milky pink Swarovski crystals along the bottom edge.

As always, Pantone offered up some of the other colors to coordinate it with their Color of the Year. This year, they include Serenity (a pale bluish periwinkle), Silver Gray and a pale, dingy green color they call Lint. So here is my first attempt at working with these colors that were handed down from above.

Ah, lint... I still can't believe they named a color Lint. I don't know about you, but the lint around my house comes in lots of colors besides pale, dingy green.  I almost hope they pick Lint as the Color of the Year in 2017.

The tutorial for Ginkgo Leaf Earrings is for sale in my Etsy shop. Thanks for looking.  Have a better than average December.

Pixel Painting 4 - Tom Davis Cellular Automata

This painting is the fourth large piece in my series of painting using cellular automata on a staggered grid.

Here you can see the four that I have finished so far. I hope you can some sense the range of designs that are possible using this technique.

In this series, I am trying to achieve a sense of rhythm, repetition, order and chaos. I like cellular automata because the designs are a balance between organic and geometric.

Each pixel has many layers of paint, making the colors rich and complex. The colors are were inspired by Pantone and Benjamin Moore Color Trends for 2015. Prominently featured are Marsala and Guilford Green. So, if your interior decoration is contemporary, this painting will match the couch. Thirty years from now, when we look back on the two-thousand and teens, these are the colors we will think of, you know, in the same way when you think of the 1970s, you think of avocado green, mustard, and dull orange.

I named this piece after mathematician Tom Davis, who was likely the first person to discover the rule set I used to design this piece (after I told him where to look). Tom's assistance on my work with cellular automata has been invaluable to me.

20" by 30", unframed. The sides are painted black so it doesn't need a frame.

Signed and dated. I sealed it with three coats of acrylic clear coat to make it a little shiny and protect it from scratches. Looks nice. Want it?  It's for sale here: Pixel Painting 4.

Pixel Painting 3 - Hanging Baskets Cellular Automata

This is an acrylic painting from my new series "Pixel Paintings." In this series, I explore the designs created with cellular automata. This painting is the third large piece in the series.

In this series, I am trying to achieve a sense of rhythm, repetition, order and chaos. I hope to create a balance between organic and geometric.

Each pixel has many layers of paint, making the colors rich and complex. The colors are mostly blue, purple and gray with a variety of pinks and burgundies. Here's a close up. 

20" by 30", unframed. Signed and dated. I sealed it with three coats of acrylic clear coat to make it a little shiny and protect it from scratches. The sides are painted black so it doesn't need a frame. This painting is SOLD.

Have a great weekend. Thanks for looking.

Marsala Beaded Bead Necklace

This necklace features Pantone's 2015 Color of the Year, Marsala with aquamarine blue and titanium gray.

It includes 8 beaded beads: 5 Nuts & Washers, a Cube Cluster, an Octahedral Cluster, and a Conway Bead. I carefully selected 7 lampwork glass beads to make the strand into an asymmetric, yet perfectly balanced strand of beads. That's 15 beads in all. Together they make a pallet that is rich and earthy, sophisticated, and oh-so in fashion.

They're all strung on a yard of blue cord of pure silk that I twisted and plied on my spinning wheel.

It includes almost 6 inches (15 cm) of beads. Largest beaded bead measures almost an inch (23 mm).  Thanks for looking!

Marsala Necklace with Pantone's 2015 Color of the Year with Aquamarine and Titanium Gray

I think I'm actually starting to fall warm up to Marsala, now that I finished a beaded bead necklace made with Pantone's suggested pallet for marsala, including titanium gray and aquamarine.

I made this necklace match the Ginkgo Earrings I beaded last week by using a lot of the same seed beads.

I really like marsala with gray and pale blue, but it doesn't seem to generally play well with lots of colors, in my opinion.  Since it has a lot of brown in it, if you add too many other dull colors, the whole thing can get murky.

In making this necklace, I was very careful to stick to Pantone's suggested pallet. Every time I deviated, I liked the combo a lot less. In the evolution of this necklace, I had some mossy green in there, like a dull lime. It made the whole thing look really muddy and dated. So, I remade a mossy green beaded bead in blues and traded out some of the greenish lampwork for blues and cool grays, and the whole thing looked really different, more vibrant and classy.  You can see that there is still a bit of green in there, but a lot less than there had been at one point.  This showed me how it's not just the colors you use that create a pallet, but in what proportions you use them.  A little dull green is okay.  Too much, and it looks muddy.

It's amazing to me how subtle changes in colors in a color combo can make a big difference in the overall impact.  In the end, I'm very pleased with how the colors work together here.  The warm marsala plays well with the cool blues and grays.  The necklace and matching earrings are for sale in my Etsy shop.  Thanks for looking.

Pantone's 2015 Color of the Year Marsala on Ginkgo Leaf Earrings

I challenged myself to use Pantone's 2015 color of the year Marsala, something of a muted brownish scarlet that reminds me of spilled red wine on an off white table cloth or worse, dried blood. 

I think a brighter or darker shade of red, like pomegranate or scarlet would have been a great improvement over Marsala. I wonder if designers will tend towards brightening this up a bit. If they really wanted a wine, I think Chardonnay would have been a better choice with its warm sunny yellows, but hey, they didn't ask me.  Anyway, here's my first pair of Marsala Earrings with golden bronze.  Here I went with more of a cranberry for my Marsala and then browned it up a bit by adding Bronze.  Other colors include rich dark blue, purple and forest.

This pair I made second, and used cool gray and pale blue.  Here, the brown seed beads are a bit browner than Marsala, but the sapphires are pretty spot on.

 Both pairs have sparkling faceted sapphires to add just a touch of twinkle.

I predict that Marsala is going to be a tough color for designers in 2015. What do you think? Do you like Marsala?  I think it's going to take me a few months to warm up to it.  I guess I like it with the blue and gray.  It feels sort of modern-ish.   

The tutorial is available in my Etsy shop if you want your ears to be a la mode, superchic!  Click on the photos to go to the listing.  Thanks for looking.

Upcycled Sweater Number 5

I really enjoy making these new sweaters out of old sweaters, enough that I decided to start numbering them.  This one is number 5.  I'm finally feeling more comfortable with the technique of sewing sweaters on my serger without fretting over every seam.

It's made of fine wool and cashmere.  It's pretty soft, cozy and warm.

Plus, it buttons up the front with some old buttons from my grandmother's button box.  I made the button placket myself, which I'm pretty proud of.  It took me 13 tries on a scrap to figure out how to get my sewing machine to make button holes properly, but I got it, and I took notes for next time. 

I'm rather pleased with how the neckline came out.

The little leaves are all stitched on separately.

I also added leaves on the sleeve hems and on the patch pocket. This sweater is SOLD.  Thanks for looking.