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Learning How To Bead
Perhaps there are many people who would look at this article's title, "Learning How to Bead," and write them back as absurd. In fact, there isn't much more to the mechanics of beading than there is to stringing snacks to put 'round the Christmas Tree, right? That, and a free beading project to work on, and you're ready. How much more is there to say? What else can there be to talk about?
The truth, however, is that there is a lot more to learning how to bead than just stringing popcorn, and this article will take a closer look at what else you need to learn.
Learning how to bead involved learning in four primary areas. They might seem innocuous enough at first, but on closer inspection, the inevitable conclusion is that there's much more to learning how to bead than first meets the eye.
The four basic "disciplines" you must get good at to really know how to bead are the following:
Mechanics
Patterning
Color Selection
Medium Selection/Mixing
We'll read through the particulars of these individually as a means of putting you on the route to learning how to bead.
The first step in your "learn how to bead" training is mechanics. If you don't have the mechanics down, then the rest does not matter. Fortunately, from a mechanics viewpoint, it truly is about as simple as stringing popcorn. If you can do that, then you've already gotten this feature of knowing how to bead down, but even here, there is some seductively. Were you aware, for example, that when stringing pearls, you need to tie a knot on either side of the stone to avoid potential damage caused by the stones rubbing against each other? Or that there are times when you merely have to tie a loose knot as a "bead brake" at the end of the line you're not beading?
Thus even where the basic mechanics are concerned, there's more to learning the way to bead than you may first think. Certainly, however, this is the easiest of the four aspects to learn.
The next discipline you need to wrap your brain around in learning how to bead is the idea of patterning. Whole books could (and have) been published on this subject, and once you really get into it and start studying it, you'll quickly realize that of all the fields, this one is the most complex and involved. Definitely the one you'll spend the most time on when learning how to bead.
Color selection is one part art and one part science. Art students discover more about complimentary and different colors as a first course, and thus are a leg up in this section, but there are many resources both online and off which will guide you through this discipline on your quest to learn how to bead. Don't skimp here. Proper color selection can make or break your patterns!
Lastly, the last major aspect to master in learning how to bead is medium selection and the proper mixing of mediums. This is often a practical, good sense area (ie., don't mix cheap plastic material with your semi-precious stones!) but even here there is some subtlety to be found.
Learning how to bead isn't too tricky, and getting a free beading project to practice with is very simple. Anyone can do it, and with practice, do it nicely. Just bear in mind that there's much more to it than stringing popcorn!
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