Someone asked me recently how I got started making wire jewelry. Here’s a brief encapsulation of what I told them (since they were thinking about becoming a wire jewelry designer):
One of the best ways to start seeing if you’re really going to start getting into wire jewelry is to start off by following other people’s tutorials. That’s exactly what the tutorials are for and they are intended to be copied. So, first then, find say, two or three of the most appealing tutorials, many of which are free on the web, and then tackle each one. A caveat though: try starting out with ones that look relatively easy at first and once you are satisfied with those, move on to another set of again, three, wire jewelry tutorials that will now teach you some new techniques.
You’ll want to focus you’re attention during this time on all the various wire jewelry making techniques that are available. Wire wrapping is one of the most common and popular techniques today so that might be a good place to start for your first three tutorials. Once you’ve gotten your wire wrapping down, there’s a multitude of other more sophisticated techniques on how to make your own jewelry with wire. You’ll likely discover a number of these as you hunt for your tutorials to learn from.
Another important thing to consider when beginning your learning is to drop any tutorial that is causing you too much angst. That’s right, just give it up knowing that you may return to it some day. Understand that you’ve learned something anyway even if you didn’t get a finished piece of wire jewelry from it. Then move on to another, easy project to increase you wire skills.
Finally, as you go thru this process, try and be patient with yourself as this is a somewhat long process. And as with many processes, it’s a journey, an adventure. Along that adventure, there will be mistakes and frustration along with successes. Getting past those things will help you learn and grow as a wire jewelry designer.