Twelve years. I started this project twelve years ago, and today I hold the result in my hand. It’s a book that combines bead weaving with math called, “Beading with Algorithms: Cellular Automata in Peyote Stitch.” With help from mathematician and artist Roger Antonsen, graphic designer Zelda Lin, a handful of talented proof readers, and the good people from World Scientific Publishing Company, my dream of combining my loves of math, art, and teaching into a book is finally a reality.

This book is the first of its kind, a recipe book of algorithms that can be used and combined to generate colorful patterns in peyote stitch beadwork in any size and shape you desire. These algorithms could also be applied to other pixelated art forms like tile laying, embroidery, crochet, and quilts. We included projects like bracelets, pill pouches, pendants, beaded beads, and key chains. We also included a bunch of different grids that you can photocopy and color with markers.

Of course I’m biased, but I think it’s a really beautiful book. We included multiple colorful images on almost every page, 172 pages in all. It was a huge layout challenge, but Zelda nailed it. My original goal was to write 128 pages on how to use algorithms to make beaded jewelry, but the more we explored the space, the more we found. Not just millions of algorithms, the space of possibilities is infinite. So of course, we couldn’t include them all. But we used math and Roger’s custom software that he wrote for this project to help us find dozens of the easiest algorithms and more than a hundred more in increasing levels of complexity. We included all of our favorites. 1/2

#MathArt #beading #Genuary #math #beadweaving

January 28: No libraries, no canvas, only HTML elements.

Here's a patch of the Penrose P3 tiling rendered entirely as pure HTML+CSS. I used code to generate the HTML, but the end result is self-contained. Each tile is a <div>; the trick is (relatively) easy because rhombs are affinely transformed rectangles.

You can see the HTML at https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/tmp/penrose.html. #genuary #genuary2026

#genuary2026, day 28:
No libraries, no canvas, only HTML elements.

#creativecoding #genuary28 #genuary #html #mastoart

#genuary2026, day 28:
No libraries, no canvas, only HTML elements.

#creativecoding #genuary28 #genuary #html #mastoart

#genuary 2026 day 6: "Lights on/off. Make something that changes when you switch on or off the “digital” lights."

#genuary 2026 day 6: "Lights on/off. Make something that changes when you switch on or off the “digital” lights."

Twelve years. I started this project twelve years ago, and today I hold the result in my hand. It’s a book that combines bead weaving with math called, “Beading with Algorithms: Cellular Automata in Peyote Stitch.” With help from mathematician and artist Roger Antonsen, graphic designer Zelda Lin, a handful of talented proof readers, and the good people from World Scientific Publishing Company, my dream of combining my loves of math, art, and teaching into a book is finally a reality.

This book is the first of its kind, a recipe book of algorithms that can be used and combined to generate colorful patterns in peyote stitch beadwork in any size and shape you desire. These algorithms could also be applied to other pixelated art forms like tile laying, embroidery, crochet, and quilts. We included projects like bracelets, pill pouches, pendants, beaded beads, and key chains. We also included a bunch of different grids that you can photocopy and color with markers.

Of course I’m biased, but I think it’s a really beautiful book. We included multiple colorful images on almost every page, 172 pages in all. It was a huge layout challenge, but Zelda nailed it. My original goal was to write 128 pages on how to use algorithms to make beaded jewelry, but the more we explored the space, the more we found. Not just millions of algorithms, the space of possibilities is infinite. So of course, we couldn’t include them all. But we used math and Roger’s custom software that he wrote for this project to help us find dozens of the easiest algorithms and more than a hundred more in increasing levels of complexity. We included all of our favorites. 1/2

#MathArt #beading #Genuary #math #beadweaving

January 28: No libraries, no canvas, only HTML elements.

Here's a patch of the Penrose P3 tiling rendered entirely as pure HTML+CSS. I used code to generate the HTML, but the end result is self-contained. Each tile is a <div>; the trick is (relatively) easy because rhombs are affinely transformed rectangles.

You can see the HTML at https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/tmp/penrose.html. #genuary #genuary2026

#genuary2026, day 27:
Lifeform. A shape or structure that behaves as if it’s alive or growing.

made with #p5js

#genuary #genuary27 #creativecoding #mastoart #plants

#genuary2026, day 27:
Lifeform. A shape or structure that behaves as if it’s alive or growing.

made with #p5js

#genuary #genuary27 #creativecoding #mastoart #plants

We found so much to include that the book ended up a full third longer than I had originally planned. It took years longer than I originally expected. But it was a labor of love, a passion project, something we made because we wanted to make something beautiful and inspiring. I can hardly believe it’s finally finished. I hope you will love it too.

Link to order the book: https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/14357#t=aboutBook

There’s a 30% off code
RECMATH30

It’s preorder. The release date is the end of February. 2/2

#MathArt #beading #Genuary #math #beadweaving