How To Paint Jewels

Hi. How are ya? Has the Fall weather hit where you live yet? Well we had about two days of below 90 degrees. Just enough to tease me, to make me think of cool evenings, light jackets, sleeping with covers again.

And then, Wham! 98 degrees and higher. I blame this tutorial on the heat. If the temperature goes above 90, strange things happen to me.

Like painting a crown with ‘faux’ jewels on it. I mean, why on earth would anyone want to paint jewels when you can just simply glue some real fake ones on the canvas, right?

Real. Fake. Jewels. Like that?

I actually glued some real fake jewels on a painting of Iridessa. But that was a painting for an 11 year old young lady.

And they made her very happy.

I like when my paintings make people happy.

I like when my paintings make me happy.

See that painting on the left? I wasn’t happy. I knew the crown was, um, ‘off’ when I shared it here before. I had to look at it for a while to see what was wrong.

Luckily, it was when we had 2 days of Indian Summer weather and I repainted the monogram with a new crown.

When I started painting the jewels they didn’t look right. Flat, no dimension. I knew the client didn’t want glitter or pearl paint and I was stuck. So I googled.

How to paint jewels. How to paint gemstones. How to paint diamonds. Paintings of jewels. Jewel paintings.

Nothing.

Apparently no one but me paints jewels. (which I don’t believe – I just don’t think they labeled their paintings with “painted jewels”.)

So I played around with it for a day or so and finally, finally I was happy. So happy that I wanted to share how to paint jewels on my blog.

I started with a sketch. I always start with a sketch. The end result doesn’t always look like the sketch, but I always start with one.

I painted the circular ovals light gray.

I know. They’re not circles and they’re not quite ovals. Part of the heatstroke, ok?

I added darker gray to the outside edge and then created an inner, uh, ‘oval’.

We’ll just go with that.

Then I made little lines with the darker gray that will hopefully look like facets when I’m done.

Then I started adding white.

I use craft-paint white. Not artist-tube white. What’s the difference? Coverage. Opacity. It takes more coats with craft paint than it does with tube acrylics.

It’s also why my ‘layering method’ works though. So I stick with craft paints.

(And they’re cheaper. Lots, lots, cheaper.)

Paint white from the outside edge, moving inward.

Next, add white right next to the dark gray line and next to the inner circle.

If you cover the gray line, no worries, because of the craft paint not covering in one coat, ok?

Then add white to the inner circle.

Hey! Do you like how I switched from what I did into writing as if you’re really gonna paint some gemstones?

I live in my own little world of paint, Friends. It’s a happy little world.

Except when it’s 85 degrees at 9:00 at night and some guy who can’t sing a lick just dropped his pants on The X Factor.

I’m dead serious. It just happened.

Moving on . . .

. . . to my happy little paint world - apply a wash of white to the entire ‘gemstone’.

Now, it might look just fine after a wash. It might need a 2nd one. I added a 2nd one.

Then I had to add a little extra shading ‘cause I made it too white.

It’s the heat, I tell ya. It’s the first day of Fall – or is it tomorrow? Whatever! It should not be so dang hot! I should be painting pumpkins and witches and black cats and . . .

I’ll stop now.

If one day in the near, or distant, future you want to paint a crown, now you know how to paint jewels that look not-so-bad.

Even if it’s not 98 degrees.