Got Leftovers? Make Soup!

I'm not the most uptight bead artist, but too much stuff on the work table leads to a stuck feeling.  Having some pre-threaded needles left over from a workshop finally got to me and I decided to use them. 

The wide range of thread colors at first threw me.  I decided to disregard the usual color-coordinating niceties and just mess around and try odd things.  I used mostly translucent beads, so I could see what effect the thread color had on the pieces.

To live up to my reputation as someone who digresses, here's a digression about my workspace. 

Unlike many beadweaving artists, I use a white ceramic plate (I like my beads to mix and I like to see them).  The little blue rectangles are elbow rests I cut out from a mouse pad.  The bead needles are stuck to magnetic business cards (the ones that you see on the phone book).  The plate sits on a small box, so I don't hunch over the work (preventing neck strain is 99% of the cure).  The stereo is not in the picture but it's nearby.

Freed from any notion of purpose, usefulness or immediate saleability, you can develop ideas that are purposeful, useful and even saleable...

The piece above is woven with aqua colored thread; the one below is woven with orange thread.  Makes a difference when you use translucent (see-through) beads, even in such a strong color.

The red piece is woven with dark blue thread (see what it does to the beads compared with those in the image above?) and the gold with purple.  The gold is not translucent, so the color isn't affected---except at the ends of the fringe pieces, where the thread is exposed.

I saved the thread that I could use for a "real" project for last.  I came up with the cone shapes while messing around, of course.

I've kept a pen and pencil and paper by the bed for years, on the advice of none other than science fiction writer A. E. Van Vogt.  What happens is that by bedtime, as your mind relaxes, ideas about what to do with all this nutty stuff bubble up.  About 20 - 30% of what's written down might be useful.

It's daunting to invest time in just messing around in such an intricate medium, so I'll be launching a tutorial (maybe a series of 'em) called Guided Improvisation on http://www.craftedu.com/.  It'll be kind of like Hansel and Gretel leaving bread crumbs behind them so they don't get lost... except that the bread crumbs don't get eaten... and there's no witch...