Wednesday, May 13, 2015

A close up view of some of my early beads


 I've been told that one of the things I should start doing is showing off some of my less than perfect beads. I've done this recently with a few projects to make the process I go through when learning a new design more evident.  However, another reason to show off my less than perfect beads is to let new bedmakers know that we all start from the beginning, and that as far as I have come with my bead making stills, I was once new just like they are. Below are some of my earliest beads, posted here, so others can see.

Many of them are in the same basic colors, because one of the ways I tried to learn beaming was to take a glass rod, and made bead after bead using a technique to practice and to try and troubleshoot my technique. However, some of my earliest work with "stringer" decoration has not been saved because I did not even practice this decoration on a bead. I headed up the end of glass rod, mushed it flat into a paddle shape, and decorated the paddle. This was a nice way to practice decoration techniques efficiently because I did not need to invest as much time in the creation of a bead to decorate.