Doodle No. 31 Adam Makes an Atom

This is what happens when I let Melanie Schrader pick the colors.

Mike Ryan pointed out that the atom has three electrons, so it must be lithium. He cares for bipolar. Here is a detail of Adam and his lithium atom and the flash of the mica paint. 

4” square

Prismacolor black ink, Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils, Finetec mica watercolor paint on Stonehenge 250 GSM 100% cotton paper

 NFS

Doodle No. 29 Green Hole with Shrimp

If you ever visit a green hole, be sure to get a souvenir while you’re there. 

Someone challenged me to draw a black hole using a tiling other than the regular square one. That’s why there are triangles. Plankton and 2D RNA structures decorate the surface. The gold planet and most of the little dots shimmers in the light with mica paint. 

4” square

Prismacolor black ink, Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils, Finetec mica watercolor paint on Stonehenge 250 GSM 100% cotton paper. 

Original available: https://www.etsy.com/listing/704139530/

Doodle No. 8 Double Black Hole

Sometimes, you have to go full double rainbow.

8” by 10” Prismacolor ink and Prismacolor pencils on 108 lb Borden & Riley Paper

This piece is sold. 

 Detail.

Thanks for looking. 

Atomic Shirt for a Man

I finally found something nice to make for my sweetie that he can use. This shirt is two layers of pure cotton jersey, stenciled with acrylic paint, and hand stitched with polyester thread. He requested an atomic symbol, like the one for the Springfield Isotopes baseball team on The Simpsons.

To make the shirt pattern, I cut up his old favorite t-shirt, traced it onto pattern paper, and added seam allowances. Then I made a rough draft t-shirt to test the pattern and used it to make a few small adjustments to the pattern. Then I cut this garment, which I consider a final copy. It should be a perfect fit. After trying to use other people's patterns and drafting my own, I have to say that starting with well loved garment is an excellent way to draft a perfect pattern that fits, and if you are willing to cut it up, you get to the right pattern easily without too many alterations.

Here is the rough draft shirt I made first to test the pattern before spending a lot of time on fancy embroidery.

The fabric had a flaw that I didn't catch until the shirt was sewn together.  So I added a star on the back to cover it up. 

Here is my sweetie's favorite cotton t-shirt (left), all worn out and sad. In blue on the right, you can see my new version. I changed the number because I cut a stencil and I didn't want to deal with the holes in the 8. Fortunately, he didn't care.

I learned the techniques for construction and embellishment from the books by Natalie Chanin. Her work is such an inspiration.

New Tutorial - Tila Buckyball Bead Beaded with Bugle and Seed Beads

Here is a new tutorial that will show you how to weave beautifully spherical buckyballs with two-holed Tila beads (or half Tilas), bugles and seed beads.

The design is based upon the structure of a soccer ball. When made with shiny metallic beads, it has lots of facets that reflect light like a disco ball. The beaded bead is remarkably hollow with lots of large holes that let you see inside.

This tutorial is suitable for intermediate bead weavers who know have already beaded a dodecahedron of some sort. This beaded bead is a relatively quick project that will push your spatial reasoning thinking to new places.

Presented is a very efficient and intuitive method for beading the beaded beads and earrings, both in two sizes. Yes, that's right, you can make matching earrings in two sizes, and they weave up rather quickly!

 Thanks for looking!

T4 Bacteriophage Art Object in Beads No.2

A few weeks ago, I showed you my first beaded bacteriophage.  In the process of beading it, I learned that there were many more details known about the structure of the T4 bacteriophage than what I built.  So of course, I had to make another one with more details, bigger and better than the first.  Here you can see the two of them together.

The most significant difference between these two art objects is the capsid, or head. (Click on the photos to enlarge them.)

The first phage includes 12 pentagons and 30 hexagons.  It turns out that 30 isn't nearly enough.  So, the second phage shows 12 pentagons and 155 hexagons, making it more representative of real T4 phages as far as I understand it.  There seems to be some debate over the precise arrangement of the hexagons, but I think this is the most recent understanding of the structure. (Correct me if I'm wrong!)  This capsid has about 3500 beads in it, just in case you were wondering. 

For the first phage, I made the sheath like a tube of stacked rings (of beads) because I didn't realize the sheath is actually a spiral.  So, for the second phage, I used a beaded spiral tube instead.  It's not quite the same type of spiral as on a real phage because I opted for artistic aesthetics over scientific accuracy.  Sometimes I worried a bit about these adjustments, but I kept reminding myself that no matter how accurate my representation of a virus, it still wont work.  Like, it's never going to be able to infect a bacteria.  You'd be surprised how many times I had to remind myself...

The second phage also has a  more accurate collar shape with whiskers on its collar. Here you can see how big it is.  The legs are quite springy.

The second phage also has a more elaborate base plate than the first with little fibers that hang down, as if it's getting ready to make its move and insert its DNA into its host bacterium. 

Both of these art objects are for sale in my Etsy shop, gwenbeads.
Small Bacteriophage (No. 1)
Large Bacteriophage (No. 2)


I always enjoy a good beading challenge.  So, I'd like to thank Dr. Mark O. Martin for encouraging me to bead a bacteriophage.  I really knew nothing about these things before he shared a picture with me.  In beading these pieces, I learned lots of fascinating facts about viruses and microbes, but one of the weirdest is about color and electron microscopes. It turns out that electron microscopes take pictures with electrons instead of light.  This way, they can "see" things that are much smaller than visible light waves, like a thousand times smaller!  Think about that... visible light waves are WAY too big to capture images of these viruses.  These virues are TOO SMALL FOR COLOR!  Chew on that.  A consequence of this is that electron micrographs never have natural color.  When you see color images, they are always colored after the fact by people (possibly with the help of a computer). 

In other beading news, I also made a Twisty Bits Necklace.  Ever since I finished writing the Twisty Bits Tutorial, I've been wanting to make this necklace in these colors, mixed metals with gold as the feature.

So here it is, a long beaded bead on a yard of silk cord.  It's for sale.  Click the photos to go to the listing.  Thanks for looking.

Bacteriophage in Beads for the Microbiologist Nerd in You

This beaded object represents a bacteriophage, a type of virus that infects and replicates within a bacterium. It contains a head (capsid), collar, sheath, tail fibers and base plate. This was one of the many images I worked from of a bacteriophage.

My favorite part of this virus is the elongated icosahedral structure of the capsid, exhibiting a tessellation of pentagons and hexagons for the capsomeres.

For years, people have been telling me that some of my beaded beads look like viruses, so with a push from Dr. Mark O. Martin, I finally decided to bead something that really looks like a virus.

This piece measures about 6 inches high and 7 inches across. It's signed on one foot with my custom stamped gold filled tag.

It's made with glass beads, plastic tubes, wire and thread.  The head is hollow and is stiff yet flexible. This model has loops at the end of each leg so you could mount it on a wall. The legs contain wire, which are flexible.

This is original art. This is also an educational model. Think of it as a tactile mind game, a little bit of sparkle to entertain your brain. If you would like to take it home, it's for sale here.   You can also see an even bigger and more detailed T4 bacteriophage in beads.  They are great gifts for the biologist who has everything because they almost certainly don't have one of these.  Thanks for looking.