Skill Level Guidelines

Skill Level Guidelines

A beadmaker's skill level is usually a combination several factors, the most important of which is usually time spent at the torch. Artistic ability, fine motor skills and eye / hand coordination play a role also, but you just can't beat experience for pushing your beadmaking skills to new levels.

When we talk about skill levels, it is not a judgement on a beadmaker's abilities, but rather on their skill level right now, at this point in time. Skill levels are dynamic, ever changing, not static.

Skill level is also not about how many different "techniques" you have mastered. Understanding how to make a hollow bead or a murinne cane does not guarantee that you will be doing them well, with ease and precision.

Looking at it from the other side, a beadmaker could be making very technically precise beads, but they may not be particularly outstanding, due to lack of artistic ability, originality, or poor color sense. Those things are harder to learn and develop. Skill is nothing more than a progression of the understanding of and experience with hot glass, and the longer you're at it, the better your skill will be, regardless of your artistic abilities.

That said, unless you're completely new to beadmaking, classes listed for certain skill levels can be confusing. There is no commonly agreed upon set of skills that an advanced beginner, intermediate or advanced beadmaker should have. What "intermediate" means to you might not be what I mean when I say a class is for someone at the intermediate level. So, I have created a set of guidelines for what I consider the various levels of beadmaking.

These are guidelines only, (and only my opinion, of course...) because people develop skills at different rates, and in different areas. Sometimes a beadmaker might be very good with stringer control, and still not be able to get a balanced bead with even puckers on the ends. These guidelines are based on the usual progression of skills that I have observed in teaching for several years, but not everyone will fit a skill level exactly. That's okay - I offer these skill level definitions simply as guidelines to help students to choose the most appropriate classes that I teach for the skills they have already mastered, and the skills that they still want and need to work on.

Beginner

Advanced Beginner

Intermediate

Advanced

Basic Knowledge and Understanding
of Beadmaking

Information from internet, books and videos

Understanding of SAFETY issues, the annealing process, COE, and glass characteristics such as strain point, stress, viscosity and thermal conductivity.

Same as Adv. Beginner, but glass characteristics and properties have been internalized, and some basic skills in working with hot glass are becoming instinctive.

You are developing an understanding of heat base, precise stringer control, and use of gravity and simple tools for shaping hot glass.

Same as Intermediate, but long term experience with glass has developed your instincts and skills with hot glass.

Your knowledge of beadmaking has probably been expanded and enhanced by taking classes with other beadmakers.

Most likely, you have begun to develop a distinct personal style in your beadmaking.

Experience making beads

May have taken short course (intro) in beadmaking, or may not have ever made beads before

May have taken class in beginning beadmaking (or self-taught) and usually at least 6 mo. - 1 yr. experience in making beads on a regular basis.

Usually 1 - 4 years of experience making beads on a regular basis.

Usually more than 3 - 4 years making beads on a regular basis.

Skills you already have

Probably few or none

Able to wind glass evenly around the mandrel for a balanced bead.
Able to get and maintain good "puckers" (or, indentations) or evenly flat ends near bead hole.
Able to pull stringer of a useable thickness.
Able to put dots / designs on bead with control over placement and consistency of size.
Able to encase a bead.

Same as Adv. Beginner, but also:

Able to make balanced bicones, lentils, and 3D shapes using gravity and marver (not bead presses)
Able to control the heat level in the bead to allow for shaping and decoration.
Able to make fairly detailed and precise raised patterns and designs with stringer.
Able to encase with few or no air bubbles.
Able to duplicate a complex bead design over again.

Same as Intermediate, but also:

Skills have become more and more refined.
Very precise control of the hot glass.

Skills you may have problems with

Laying glass evenly on the mandrel
pulling stringers
getting bead to look balanced
nice puckered ends
putting dots where you want them to go.

Making balanced and consistent 3D shapes, such as bicones, hearts, etc.
Understanding how hot your bead should be when you are working on it.
Not burning / boiling the glass.
Pulling consistent and even twisties and latticcino cane.
Encasing a bead without extra air bubbles.
Using stringer to make even and consistent patterns / designs on the bead.

Skills are becoming, but aren't quite, second nature to you yet.
You are still having to think about how to achieve shape, balance, color, reactions you want.
Different beadmakers will have gaps in different skill areas, based on natural abilities.

Will vary by beadmaker, based on natural abilities

Skills you want to work on

Everything!

Understanding heat control
Getting better at achieving consistent and even shapes.
Developing more precise and detailed stringer control.
Ability to make the same bead over again, rather than relying on "happy accidents" all the time.

Developing precision and ease of working with the glass
Being able to translate the vision in your head to the glass on your mandrel

Same as intermediate, only more so....

Bead Examples:

coming soon