Bead Arts

Help, help! I know nothing about formal design theory! What do balance, unity, line, color, movement, and contrast have to do with making jewelry?

Don’t despair. If you don’t have time or funds for a college-level course on design, check out some of the best the web has to offer:

Informational Articles on Design:

Formal Visual Analysis
A good introductory article by Jeremy Glatstein on the elements and principals of composition.

Art, Design, and Visual Thinking
An entire online design course by Charlotte Jirousek.

Common Questions on Design
By Sara Sanford, written for Lapidary Journal.

50 Ways to Become a Better Designer
Tips supplied by various artists.

The Color Wheel and Itten’s Color Theory

Best Books on Design

Jewelry Design Tools:

Virtual Beadboard
A beading project design tool.

Swarovski Crystal Design Board
Especially good for calculating the numbers.

Intelligirl Jewelry Maker
Designed specifically for kids, but may still be useful for simple designs.

Interactive Beadwork Designer
For loomwork, especially Native American patterns.

Color Tools
One of my previous posts.

Gallery of Design Ideas
By Fire Mountain Gems for when you need some inspiration.

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The Beadin’ Path

My favorites:

Estate Beads
Unique stylish beads, in glass, lucite, and even bakelite!

Talisman Associates
Vintage German glass beads, arranged by color.

BeadRoom.com
A huge selection of vintage glass, arranged by color and size.

The Beadin’ Path
Lots of vintage glass and lucite.

Costume Jewelry Supplies
Unique beads and pieces that you won’t find elsewhere.

Splendor in the Glass
Some of the most beautiful and unusual beads available anywhere.

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media

Often times, the jewelry pieces that I admire most are the ones that use the artist’s own handmade beads. Nothing else will ever be exactly like that piece.

If you want to make true one-of-a-kinds, you should probably think about learning to make your own beads and findings. We’ll just cover the beads today. Here’s a list of links to sites that cover lampworking, clay, paper, wire, and much more!

Lampworking ~ the allure of the flame

Schermobeads
An excellently photographed introduction to the steps involved in making lampworked beads.

Frequently Asked Questions
All kinds of information about hot glass.

Making Glass Beads by Cindy Jenkins
Beads that are multicolored, grooved, feathered or foiled, and decorated with spots, dots, eyes, and stripes: no matter which of these designs in glass you choose, the results will be beautiful. Detailed instructions and magnificent photos, along with scores of valuable tips and tricks, guide you through an awesome array of techniques, making this the best guide to glass beading ever.

Polymer ~ let’s play with clay

Polymer Clay Central
Lessons, projects, and instructions from some of the finest polymer artists, all gathered in one place.

Beads By Hand
Clay beads and more!

The Polymer Clayspot
Frequently asked questions about what it is and how to use it.

Making Polymer Clay Beads by Carol Blackburn
A comprehensive introduction to making beads from polymer clay that also provides inspiration, demonstrates the range of effects that can be achieved, and teaches how to incorporate these beads into jewelry designs.

The New Clay by Nan Roche
This book has been around a while, and for a good reason. It’s one of the best books for learning polymer clay techniques like millefiori and bead making.

Paper or Cloth Beads ~ rollin’, rollin’, rollin’…

Partz Paper Beads
How to make them, and what to do with them once you have!

Cloth Roll-Up Beads
Louise Duhamel shares her technique.

Creating Extraordinary Beads from Ordinary Material by Tina Casey
It is possible to make colorful beads of one’s own from craft materials. Casey’s beads are often humorous items made from glued strips of cloth, yarn, or paper and finished off with clear nail polish.

All wired up and no place to go

Wig Jig Wire Beads
A few lessons and many supplies for making twisted wire beads.

Make Wire Beads by Lisa Van Herik
Concise and detailed how-to instructions for making a wide variety of different wire beads. All 44 beads in this book are fully illustrated both in color and black and white and along with the individual instructions.

PMC ~ squishing silver and gold?

PMC and Art Clay Silver
An online manual for success with the new precious metal clays.

Making metal beads
Register with the ArtJewelry site and receive a free download of Nanz Aalund’s tutorial.

The Art of Metal Clay by Sherri Haab
Artist and instructor Sherri Haab demonstrates metal clay’s remarkable versatility, showing how it can be textured, molded, carved, and sculpted to create gorgeous beads.

Metal Clay Magic by Nana Mizushima
Packed with color photos showing each step of working with metal clay. Covers more than just beads, but has lots of techniques that can be used in making beads.

handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media

Color is important to every artist, but as a bead or jewelry artist, you probably haven’t been classically trained like a painter would be. Not to fear! There are a plethora of wonderful online sources to help you learn the terminology on your own and to teach you how to train your eye. Here are some of the best:

Informational Articles on Color:

The Color Wheel and Itten’s Color Theory

Brown University’s Color Theory Course

Margie Deeb’s Color Articles

Best Books on Color

Color Scheme Tools:

WellStyled
Tool is designed primarily for web designers but useful for anyone.

Steel Dolphin
Designed with the digital artist in mind.

ColorBlender
A fun to use tool with sliders.

Daily Color Scheme
For a bit of serendipity!

ColourLovers
An entire community just for color lovers.

Color Picker from Adobe
Pick your own or examine what others have done.

Color Schemer Online
Picks a group of colors that compliment your original color choice.

Pic2Color
Creates a color palette from any image that you feed into it.

Eni Oken’s color scheme software
You can download her software free!

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Here are a couple of wonderful online places to gather with other jewelry artists! You will find like-minded, similarly obsessed people to hang out with, trade tips, share sources, and swap stories. You have to register to participate at each one, but it is well worth it! It’s great to have lots and lots of bead and jewelry lovers to schmooze with!

Jewelry Making at About.Com
Friendly and knowledgeable, Tammy Powley guides this lively forum.

Bead Art Forum
Very personable and talented group. Lots of off-topic community building discussions.

Bead and Button Forum
Well organized forum with lots of talented and helpful members.

Wet Canvas Wearable Art Forum
Wonderful community with on-going projects, daily show and tell, and “wear” it’s at threads.

Beadwork at About.com
Nice community with some serious beaders!

All About Beads Forum
A friendly forum with lots of lively discussions.

Creative Wire Jewelry Forum
Learn how to give your designs that “extra something” here.

art-communities, handmade-beaded-jewelry, wearable-art, beads, beading, jewelry, mixed-media

Wendy of Indigoskye Bead Fashions has shared her tips with us on getting started with bead weaving! Many people mentioned how much they enjoyed the artist profile with Wendy two weeks ago, so now we’re fortunate to have a tutorial that Wendy wrote.

BEAD WEAVING BASICS by Wendy Van Camp

So, you saw one of those little bead looms in the craft store and just could not resist buying it. Visions of bracelets, hat bands and belts swirling in your imagination. But now that you have it, how do you use it?

Bead looms are based on a simple loom style. Basically, just a frame with a method of keeping the strung warp threads a uniform distance from one another. You loom should have instructions on how to string it properly, but a few tips to keep in mind are:

1. Make sure that all the warp threads are uniformly tight on the loom. While these threads should be taunt, they should not be so tight that they break while you work.

2. The warp threads should be placed on the loom in such a way that you can shift them without the threads tangling further.

3. Use the proper type of thread for beading and the right size for your work. Some to consider are Nymo, Silamide or Silk. Try to use the thinnest thread that you can manage, since you will be passing through the beads several times in some instances. Also, waxing your thread can help to make it pass through the beads more easily.

Before you load your loom with your chosen thread, have a look at your pattern. Pick a color of thread that will disappear into the finished beadwork. If you are using dark colors, black thread works well. Some threads come in various shades, if you want to use one, decide which color is the dominate hue in your pattern and match it with the appropriate thread color.

For loom work, any cross stitch or knitting pattern will work well or use the grid picture I designed (above). However, keep in mind that if you are using seed beads your pattern with be a bit wider than it is tall. Count the number of rows in the width of the pattern and then add one more to it. This is the number of warp threads that you need to load onto your loom.

Seed beads come in many shapes and sizes. For beadweaving, there are two types of beads. Seed beads and Delicas. Seed beads have been around for many centuries. They are the beads that the English traders used as currency with the American Indians, Africans and other colonies. Most are imported from either The Czech Republic or Japan. They come in many sizes from 22/0 to 1/0. The size most often used for beadweaving is 11/0, pronounced “eleven ought”. This number refers to how many beads are in an inch when laid flat. If you are a beginner I recommend that you select a slightly larger size, 10/0. The holes are bigger and you will have less trouble passing your needle through the beads.

Delicas are a small cylinder bead that is as tall as it is wide. They are from Japan and are more expensive than seed beads. A nice feature about Delicas are that you don’t have the width design problem that you have with seed beads and if you are using a cross stitch pattern for your work, the piece will come out close in proportion to the pattern. Also, the holes in the beads are slightly larger than regular seed bead counterparts.

Once you have selected the type of bead that you will be using, it is time to begin weaving. The following directions are for a right handed weaver. If you are left handed, please reverse the direction of your weaving if that is more comfortable for you.

1. Take a piece of thread around 3 to 4 feet long and tie one end of it to the thread on the loom that is closes to you on the left side of the loom. Leave around 4 inches of thread on the other side of the knot. This is known as a weft thread. Thread a needle onto the other
   side of the weft thread. Preferably a #10 English Beading needle.
2. Look at your pattern, the first bead that you load onto the weft thread should be the bottom of the pattern on the left side. Follow the row up, loading the proper colors onto your thread.
3. 
   Pass the thread under the loom until you pull the beads directly under it. Use the thumb of your other hand to gently push the beads up through the warp threads, one bead per space. Try to get the row as straight as you can. The first row is always the most difficult so if it takes a few tries to get the beads to behave, don’t worry!
4. 
   Once the beads are pushed up, take the beading needle and pass it through the beads. Remember, keep the thread on TOP of the warp threads. If you go under, the bead will not be secured and if on an end, the bead may pop off of your work. Once the thread is through, pull gently on the thread until all the excess is pulled through and your beads are taunt on the loom. Now, use your fingers to align them into a straight row.
5. When you weave the final row of your pattern, tie a knot and pull it down until it is snugly against the last bead, then take your thread and weave it back through your work a few times, coming up in the middle of your work and cutting it close to the surface.
6. To finish the product, take a bit of tape and secure the warp threads with it close to each end of your piece. Cut the finished piece off of your loom, leaving several inches on each side. Fold the warp threads under the loomwork and then glue to some kind of backing.
   Leather, sturdy material or cardboard are good choices. When using glue, take care that it does not ooze through the beads, this can ruin your work. Use a thicker glue that will stay on the surface of the underside of your work. A jeweler’s cement makes a good choice.

More Tips:

1. Make sure that every bead you use is of a uniform size. If you pick a bead that is a little larger or smaller than the others, your loomwork will become uneven. If you find one of these beads, throw it away. It is a cull.

2. Make sure that every bead slides easily over your needle, especially the eye. If there is even a little resistance, throw the bead away.

3. Pull the weft thread to a uniform tightness. Don’t be too tight or too loose. If you pull your weft thread too tight, your finished product will be stiff. Too loose and you risk the piece falling apart.

There you have it! Your first beadwoven piece. Remember, beadweaving takes time and patience to learn. Your first product may be of a disappointment, but with practice your work will improve!

All Images and Text Copyright 1997 Wendy Van Camp.

–
Wendy Van Camp
wvancamp @ earthlink.net
http://www.indigoskye.com/blog/

WhimBeads

My favorite on-line sources…

WhimBeads
Delicas and other Japanese seed beads in all sizes, fancy shapes

Empyrean Beads
Many antique and vintage seed beads

Kawahara
Seed beads with dichroic coating ~ fantastic!

Artbeads.com - Your online bead store
Free shipping and no minimum orders

FusionBeads
Great selection of Japanese seed beads with quantity discounts.

…and my favorite catalogs

Fire Mountain Gems
Huge assortment, aimed at uniting the world, one bead at a time!

Rings and Things
A huge selection of larger seed beads and mixtures

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Welcome to Technique Tuesday!

I will be bringing you tips, techniques, and tutorials each Tuesday on the Bead Art blog. Some of these posts will be what I call “The Basics”, which we will refer back to from time to time in the intermediate and more advanced tutorials. Some of the posts will be techniques that I’ve developed and written myself…my own opinion, in other words!…and others will be links to online tutorials that others have shared.

So today is going to be one of those “my own opinion” posts! Please feel free to leave comments that share your favorite materials and methods for today’s topic.

Peace

I am frequently asked for the specifics of how I make my bead-embroidered pieces. You can see examples of my neckpieces here, and I also posted a picture of the bead-embroidered hat that I just finished yesterday.

I’m totally sold on using Unicorn Buckramfor my beading layer, rather than some of the more expensive products marketed specifically for beading. Unless, of course, I’m actually doing the beading directly on something like the felt hat. Even then I sometimes use buckram or another lighter weight interfacing behind the felt. Buckram is a heavily starched woven cotton interfacing, used in millinery and belts. It’s very thin, but holds its shape well and practically never unravels. It can be painted or dyed and heat-set before beading, which is what I do in some of my work. The piece shown above uses a painted background with some rows of clear beads…it’s hard to see in the scan, but I beaded a bit more loosely than usual so that the color could show through.

Here’s another example, a non-wearable piece, where the painting on the fabric is more obvious.

Each according to their kinds

I buy buckram at Joann’s, in the interfacing section, and is very inexpensive! Once it is thorougly beaded, it becomes softer under the weight of the beads so that it will drape around a neckline, but it still doesn’t tend to lose shape.

Nymo thread is my choice for almost all bead embroidery. Occasionally with very heavy beads, a heavier carpet thread may be called for, but I’ve found Nymo comes in enough sizes to suit my projects. I buy large spools of black and of white Nymo in size 0, which is one of the thinner sizes. I don’t bother with colors…if I want a colored thread, I use a permanent marker and run the white nymo over it. My needles of choice are English beading needles, and I usually buy those packets that have 6 or so needles ranging from #10 through #12 or #13. The number of the needle needs to be smaller than the size of the bead, so #12s are great for beading with 11/0 seed beads. You’ll need finer needles (with higher numbers) to work with smaller beads.

For the backing, I use an ultra-suede type material. I am very fussy about the looks of the entire piece, so the backing is glued lightly to the buckram, and all the raw edges are beaded together to cover them completely.

So, that’s my run-down! What do you like to use the best?

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