Intro

Simple and quick way to paint some jewelry while still looking nice and detailed. This is how I go about painting jewelry.

 

It's a simple way to do it for people that may feel daunted by the task or for people that don't have too much time on their hands to spend painting pearls and sparkles. And for people that want more details its a very good base to continue working from.

Here are some examples of me using this on finished pieces of mine. I've used the same techniques as I will in this tutorial. I mostly paint this way because I don't have a lot of patience when painting and this process allows me to spend less time doing boring stuff.

1. Simple earring

First off prepare the area you're going to put your jewelry in, I painted a quick face but you can just do this on a blank canvas if you're more comfortable with that.

I start by painting a quick earring shape on the ear. I use a very middle ground yellow for this

I then go in with a darker brown. You don't have to pick the colors I did, in fact feel free to choose any color you want as it should theoretically work with any.

I choose a more saturated orange next and start adding it to the earring

More saturated colors next to very light color make them seem brighter, without looking dull.

There's nothing wrong with doing one over the other, but I find that having things be more bright / colorful looks more lively than having a more desaturated look. But there is a time and place for everything.

Lastly I pick a white or near white color and add the last details. I like to keep them small as to not take over the whole image. Sometimes I even go and add some sparkles, this is as everything else a personal preference.

I did the same process but with a blue earring.

2. Necklace with a gem + easy pearls

Next up is an elegant looking necklace with a gemstone and some pearls. I start by sketching out the shapes I want for the necklace and fill in the insides of the lines. As always, color is up to you but I choose a brown/orange tone since I'm making a gold necklace to match with the earrings.

I go through with the same steps as with the earring. For the chain I use a light color over a darker one and make small - - - - - - in different sizes. I find that this really gives of a really pretty chain look, and doesn't take much time at all.

Next up is to add the gem. This is the color I choose, but any color works.

Next up we add some more color to our gem. In the corners I used a darker blue.

and for the area that will be closest to the brightest spot of the gem I choose a saturated teal like color.

the last part is putting in some final white highlights, there is def a proper place for placing such things but I find that If you don't care that much for being 100% realistic you can place your highlight wherever you want.

One thing that I talk about at this point in the video is knowing where you want people to look. If you want the person that is viewing your artwork you can direct them to look where you want in some easy steps, detail and contrast (there are more but for the sake of this tutorial they don't matter as much)

 

As such I decided to add some more detail around the gemstone as I wanted to pull peoples eyes there.

I just color picked one of the lighter colors on the gold jewelry and used that to quickly put down a couple dots around the gemstone. I'm not putting anymore detail on them as I'll be having pears around the characters neck, and I want those pears to look more exciting than the ones around the gemstone.

Next up is the pearls. Because we put down the brown/orangy tone in the beginning we don't have to do that much work now. Pick a lighter color, I choose white but I'm also using a very blendy brush, so it doesn't come out as pure white.

Do this all the way around and you have some pearls! I went in an extra time with white again on the rightmost pears to add a little depth, you could i you wanted go in with a darker color and darken the pears further away but I think this works.

3. Hair jewelry

This section is going to super short as it's just us using what we just learned and putting it to use on a different piece of jewelry.

Adding chains and sparkles to our hair rings and we're done!

The end

Hope this was of some help to people!