Bead Tapestry Patterns Loom Two Winter Birds Cardinals In The Woods

In school there were four years of art classes where I always felt inadequate. Yes, I learned to paint and do all sorts of crafts including calligraphy, photography and worked with plaster, clay and other media. I had learned to sew, crochet, knit and did embroidery, cross stitch and all those forms of needlework, too. While all of that was and is still enjoyable the medium that has really caught my interest came later in life and is the beautiful world of glass beads which allow one to present an image in almost a mosaic style. I started with the semi-precious kind of beads in all sorts of stringing projects but then one day discovered the fabulous tiny glass beads called Delica. Stained glass was always something I loved but the idea of cutting the glass did not appeal to me at all. So to be able to design and make images without the danger of cutting myself seemed wonderful indeed. We feed the birds in our back yard and being on a flyway see all sorts of migrating birds and so they seemed like "natural" subjects. I began with pencil and graph paper but that was oh, so very slow. My husband takes wonderful pictures and with the advances of computer software the possibility for design has advanced tremendously and has really helped my pattern making. I like to do abstract, geometric, patterns from my imagination and scenes from photographs. Recently I have done some portrait work and that is another challenge. There are also many religious patterns in my folio of designs. I can't explain why an idea or image latches on in my mind but often just a glimpse of something catches my fancy and demands to be caught forever in a beaded tapestry like form. I have been married now for 57 years, have 5 children, 16 grandchildren and soon it will be 11 great grandchildren. Life has been good and only the good Lord knows what is next.