Family Fun

My son Nathan, who's 11, has had an on-again, off-again relationship with my paper bead creation. Sometimes he acts like he's too cool to even notice what I'm doing. At other times, he's been handing my website address to his art teacher and talking me up like I'm the next big thing. So most of the time, I let him decide whether or not I'll share what I've been up to.

The last two days, though, it's been on-again. He's decided he wants to try to make beads too. And he quickly discovered (imagine that!) that making paper beads is a lot harder than it looks. Before he got frustrated and walked away, though, he made some really funky beads. And it got me thinking.

Maybe I'm being a little TOO careful about making sure my cut lines are straight. Maybe I'm taking too much time lining everything up to end up with a smoothly tapered bead. It is, of course, important to be able to do that. And for many bead sets, I want a uniform product at the end. But I could picture a really cool necklace made from Nathan's funky, misshapen beads.

I'm thinking about experimenting with more randomness. Maybe I'll just tear some paper strips and see what kind of beads those make. Or maybe I'll roll with abandon and not worry if my paper ends up in an X at the end. After all, what is the point of art if it's not uniqueness and experimentation?

Waves on the Ocean

I love these blue and white beads I made--they make me think of ocean waves ebbing and waning. The idea actually came to me while watching a sunset, but with the colors I chose they ended up being more ocean-y than sunset-y. Maybe I'll make sunset beads another day.

I made these by starting with a blank white sheet of paper. I used blue acrylic paint and and artist's sponge for painting. I started at the top edge of the paper and sponge painted heavily, making a dark blue. As I moved down the paper, I used a lighter hand with the sponge so it the color gradually lightened. It was nearly white by the bottom edge.

I cut the paper into traditional, one-inch tapered triangles. Since that cutting method alternates which side of the paper is the base, half my triangles were dark blue on the wide side and light blue at the tip, while the other half were the other way around.

As I rolled the beads, half of them came out dark blue at the edges, lightening toward the middle. The other half were light blue at the edges and darkened toward the middle. I think it's a really neat effect. I'm looking forward to trying it with other color combinations.