How to Paint Gemstones in Watercolor: Diamonds, Emeralds & Pear Cuts

1. Introduction : If you think it's impossible to create realistic and impressive looking watercolors at your current skill level, I'm here to tell you, No. You can absolutely draw and paint like this. If you follow the steps and methods I teach in my classes. I'm Sophia, and I teach watercolor and mixed media art. I've been painting for years and also published a book on how to paint with watercolors. If you're interested in painting reflective objects like crystals or jewelry, you might have already come across one of my other classes I had on Skillshare. In my class, introduction to painting jewelry, I cover different metals, stones, and pearls to give you a compact overview on how to paint most pieces of jewelry. Some of the pieces in my previous class are suited more for intermediate skill level. So today I want to take a step back and teach you how to paint three different stones and cuts in a very beginner friendly way. 2. Your Class Project: Your class project, you'll be painting these 3 stones. Not only will you learn about the different cuts and how light reflects differently on each surface, but also what colors are shown in each stone. An emerald is not just green and a diamond is not white, but actually gray and blue and black. So I will walk you through all of that, including things like how to trace your outline, the whole process from beginning to end. Let's get started. 3. Materials: Okay, so let's go over our materials. This is the watercolor paper that I use. It's cold press paper, 300 grams heavy. And then here I have my tracing paper, charcoal paper to trace my outline and also some tape. And then my pencil, a regular eraser. And these are my watercolors. We're not going to use all of them, of course. And then this is the white quash. I always keep it in a separate palette so it doesn't get dirty. This is the one I use. It's called calligraphy quash. Most people use a color called titanium white or just regular white quash. It doesn't really matter which one you use. And then for brushes, this is my eradicator brush. This is a very handy tool. I always have it ready in case I make some mistakes, draw outside my outline, or it's very stiff, the bristles. So it's also used to lift color of the page to create highlights. And then I just have a couple of brushes ready. This is a size four round brush, and then just get all of your detail brushes out. Size zero, 20, 30, the smallest ones you have just grab them, and then you'll see which ones you actually need for this painting. But I think it's always good to have everything ready in case you might need it. And then this is a white gelpen. I'm not going to use it, but you can use it if you have one to paint the white lines for the highlights at the very end of each gemstone. I'm going to do this with the white gouache and a brush. But if that's too difficult for you, you can do that with the gel pen if you have one. So it's optional. You should always use the tools and utensils that you're most comfortable working with. And so this is pretty much it. I always have a piece of paper towel ready, and of course of glass that I'm going to fill up with water. And then we can continue with tracing our outline. 4. Tracing the Outline: Okay, so the way I trace my outlines onto my watercolor paper is very easy. If you've done this before, you don't need to watch this chapter, but if you haven't just going to show you quickly. So here's my watercolor paper. I printed the outline to the size so that it fits my paper. You can, of course, also for the purposes of this class, print the diamonds and the stones smaller or bigger. That's up to you. And then here I have regular tape just any type of tape or scotch will do. And then I tape it on one side to the paper so that it doesn't move when I outline it. And then I have the charcoal paper here, charcoal paper here. It has a shiny side, and it has a mapped side. And the shiny side is where the pigment is I don't know how you say. It's where it's got pigment, so shiny side down, always. And I don't know if you can see, but I've used this like plenty. So one of these sheets will last you for, I don't know, 20 paintings, maybe. So I place it between the outline in the watercolor paper, shiny side down. And then I take my smallest, which is this one. Smallest mechanical pencil. And then I apply, like a light to medium pressure. I don't want to press down too hard because then the outline is very dark and very strong and it'll be difficult to rub it to erase it from the paper because this charcoal stuff, I mean, you can erase it just with a regular eraser, but it's not like normal pencil. It's a bit harder to erase it. So I just apply, like, medium pressure. And then boom, boom, boom, boom. I just draw over the lines that are on the outline. And you can check in between. So it looks like this. And I have it taped onto the paper for that very reason so that I can check, if I'm happy with the intensity of the outline and so I can, like, move it like this. And especially when you have an outline that's very detailed and has a lot of little bits and pieces. Like every couple of seconds, I go like this and I check, like, have I already done this one? Have I already done that one? That's why you should tape it to your watercolor paper so it doesn't move. And then, yeah, it's just it's just outlining it like this. I'm not going to do the whole thing now because I've already outlined it on my other paper. This is just to show you. So yeah. That's it. That's how you trace your outline onto your watercolor paper. 5. Yellow Pear Cut: So for the yellow gemstone, I'm using three colors mineral gray, ale in hue and fields orange. And for brushes, I have a size four, two, and a size one or a size zero brush. You can choose the brushes that you're most comfortable painting this size illustration. Mine are just a suggestion. It's just what I'm using. Now, I'm starting to wake up the yellow. I'm just placing it in between the yellow and the orange there so that I can make a mix of both of them. If you don't have the specific yellow, the aolin hue that I'm using here, you can just as well use a cadmium yellow or hansa yellow, for example. Those are also options that would work perfectly fine. And I'm making a mix with the orange here. For orange, you can also use transparent orange or Windsor orange. All of my colors are by Windsor and Newton. But whatever you have, just use it and don't think that you need to buy new colors or supplies just because I'm using certain ones that you don't have. I'm adding a bit more yellow because I'll need it. Here, I'm just making a slightly orangy yellow mix. It's like a sunset yellow. Nice, warm and deep. What we want to do is to have different hues of yellow, have different hues of orange, and then mix the gray into it so that we have a nice variety of these colors that will make it easy to paint these slight differences when the light hits the stone and you have all these reflections and it's just different variations of a color. So I'm just trying to mix up as many different shades as I can. And I'll also be using the yellow pure, of course. So pure yellow, then yellow orange. And now a mix that's more heavy on the orange than the yellow. My gray is dried up here. I'm adding a little bit of the gray to kind of, like, knock it back a little bit to mute it so that it's a little bit dirty or muddy. I like to have both in a jewelry painting, like, really bright and shiny colors, and then ones that are more muted because it just adds more interest and variation to the piece, I think. And then you can also layer them on top of each other, of course. Here I'm adding a bit more gray, and I'm swatching them out on the paper so that I can see what they look like. A So now I'm mixing the yellow and the gray. When you mix yellow and gray and it turns slightly green, then you know that there's blue in the gray because blue and yellow mix green. And this is a pure yellow, just to show you and then the pure orange. And then the pure gray, and then that's it. And we'll also be using white squash for all of the stones. I didn't include that in the color mixing. So I'm starting by applying a layer of clean water all over my diamond. Making sure that I don't paint the water, paint the water, so to speak, over my edges. So I do like to take my time with this. This is a little bit of a speed up version because otherwise it would take too long for you to watch. And this is the size four brush. You can use a smaller brush, but it would just take much longer. So a slightly bigger one than you'd use for detail work, for example, is preferable here. So I'm just moving the water around, paying attention to the edges, as you can see, and I'm making sure that I have just enough, but not too much. And now I'm painting the pure yellow, a watered down version, and I'm applying it all over the diamond, and this will be the base wash or base layer. And I decided to do this wet and wet because the wet paper gives me enough time so that I can move the yellow around, and I don't need to worry about having hard paint lines in my diamond where I don't want them. So here, I'm just making sure that my wash is nice and even. If it's a little bit patchy, don't worry about it because we'll paint over it, obviously. So if your wash is not completely flat, as I say, it's nothing to worry about. Just let it dry and then we'll paint the different segments afterwards with another two layers, so it won't be visible. This is just to give everything a nice uniform look to start with. And now I'm coming in with the yellow that has a little bit of the gray added, and I'm painting it while my paper is still wet on the, like, lower right corner, and then upper bit and to the sides a bit. So we're imagining that the light is coming from the top left. So the top left of the stone will be lighter and the bottom right of the stone will be darker. It's just how the light and shadows fall due to the shape of the stone. So I'm already putting my shadows in place mostly so that I don't forget where to put them later on. So my first wash is establishing a base color, and also it's kind of a blueprint for where light and shadow will go later on in the painting. Because these jewelry paintings, they're so intricate. They have so many segments and detail and different reflections. And I do tend to get lost in painting, especially when I don't record for tutorial, and I just paint for maybe a commission or just something for myself. I usually listen to an audiobook or I watch a movie on the side, and then I just get lost in my painting, and sometimes I forget, like, Oh, this is where there was supposed to be a highlight, or now I forgot to put a shadow. So I use my base wash to direct me later on so that I don't forget where my darkest colors will go. Now I've let everything dry and I'm continuing with the second layer. This is the yellow again, and I'm starting to fill in the individual segments. All of this, I'm painting on dry paper. I have the size a size zero or size one brush. Smaller detail brush, use the size that you're comfortable with, and I'm trying to erase some of the pencil lines already. I tend to do that quite early when I'm painting in yellows because they're so transparent and I don't like it when the pencil lines shine through a yellow illustration. And the more watercolor you put on top of it over the pencil, of course, the harder or eventually it's impossible to erase it. So I try to do that very early. So right now, I'm just painting in some of the segments with the yellow. It's a fairly watery mix. I don't want it to be too dark because I'm going to add more layers on top of it, also at some point, adding a gradient to most of these individual segments. So I don't want the color to be too strong right now. And I'm just looking at the reference photo and identifying where this shade of yellow that I have here should go, and it's more or less paint by numbers, really. Y. I realized that I forgot to paint in one of the lines from the outline, so I'm just drawing that in. And I'm continuing to paint with the pure yellow. So now I want to paint some more concentrated, stronger pigments. So I'm going to use the same yellow. It's the pure yellow, but it's just more concentrated. So the mix is a little bit thicker. And again, I'm painting on dry paper. And I'm also painting the pure yellow down here, which is in the shadow area, because I do want the colors to be uniform, even though some are in the light in the shadow. But my shadow color that I've put down previously will peek through the transparent yellow, so they will be darker anyway. Now I'm going to switch to the more orange color. So I'm mixing up some orange and yellow again. My palette has dried since I mixed it. And I'm continuing to fill in more little segments. I'm trying to achieve an even number of more yellow and more orange little triangles and shapes. I think now that we have three different colors spread out somewhat equally throughout our stone, you can see how it's already starting to get a bit more depth and interest. So it's definitely worth not just using one pure color, but to mix up different hues with two, three colors and get a variety of values and tones. Now I'm switching back to the pure yellow again. And still, all of this is on dry paper. Here I'm dipping into my yellow and gray mix, the one that's slightly greenish. Here I have the mix that has a little bit of all three colors in it. So this is the stage where you just want to produce different hues, like I already said, different shades of the yellow and orange and just add more interest and variety to the stone. If your mixes aren't exactly like mine, and you're getting a little bit lost with, Oh, is this the grayish mix? Is this the one, which one is it? It doesn't really matter as much as long as you're consistent in your own painting. So if your mixes vary from mine, it doesn't really matter what matters is that you have consistency and a uniform look in your own illustration. A Now I'm taking some orange again that has a little bit of yellow in it, I think. And I'm continuing to add layers and paint on dry paper. Picking up some more pure yellow. So I'm really just alternating between the different colors, the different hues, and I'm just looking at my stone and trying to evaluate this is the yellow and orange mix, trying to evaluate where I need one color to be a bit more present than the other, maybe. So you don't have to paint exactly after me. You can also just look at your own gemstone and assess where you might need a bit more orange or where you might need a bit more deep yellow. So it's really up to you to also make these decisions for your own painting. Some more orange with a little bit of yellow in it here. More orange, though. So you might wonder why we've bothered with two layers if we then put a little bit stronger orange on top of it. I just does make a difference. It's more work, of course, to work in layers, but it just makes a difference. It creates depth in the stones and in the diamonds, and you do have the previous layers shining through. Watercolors are transparent. Most of them, they're not opaque like gouache or acrylic, for example. So if you build the colors rather than just slapping one thick color onto your paper, it just gives your illustration dimension is what I'm trying to say. This is some more pure yellow. And I'm looking at my reference photo, trying to decide where to place it. A So you can see that I've started to paint over a few segments in one go. I'm trying to start to combine them to bring everything together so that it doesn't look like it's just a bunch of random triangles and shapes that are next to each other. Now I'm actually adding a color. This is called Ostwald gray. It's a warm, dark gray, excuse me, has a bit of a brownish tint to it. You might not have that because that's part of a limited palette that I used by Windsor and Newton. If you don't have Ostwald gray, you can use a regular gray and add a tiny bit of dark brown to it. And I'm starting to place my darker gray. It's still a very transparent consistency, so it's not at all thick and super dark, but I do want to add it over a couple of those segments to start adding more shadow and a bit more darkness to it, because the lighter parts of the diamond are really only going to start popping when I put in some darker values. And these can also be like really small little low lights, so to speak. And you can see it just brings out the shape and the cut of the diamond in a different way. So there's the table of the diamond has a certain shape, and it's becoming much more visible now that I'm using this darker gray. So I'm using a transparent mix, like I said, just to darken some of the little triangles. And if I want to put a really dark low light, I just use a thicker consistency. Now back to the yellow area. I'm using the yellow and orange mix to darken this segment again on dry paper, and then I clean off my brush and smooth out the edges a little bit. This is pure yellow now, but it's still more concentrated than the more transparent mix that I put underneath this layer. So it still darkens it, but it's just less orange. And then up here, some more yellow, as well. So I just want to create a color gradient in each of those little segments where there's a light area and a darker area. And if we make sure that every segment, except for the super, super small ones, have some type of color gradient, it can be a gradient in the same color. For example, I'm here from lighter yellow to dark yellow, or it can be a gradient in a different color, where the base layer is yellow, and then we add some orange into it, and that's still a color gradient when we smooth out the wet colors with a clean wet brush like I do. So here still, I'm painting in pure yellow. And this type of technique to add color gradients, even though you don't see them in the reference photo is something I started to do a while ago because I realized that this is the key element in creating those really sparkly and shiny reflective effects. So even when I paint a piece of jewelry, any type of jewelry, just from a regular photo, and there are just some reflections. So there's, like, a super dark segment, and then a bright white segment, and then some mid tones, I still add color gradients to each of the little segments, even when they're not there in the real photo. So that's not a super complicated process. It is time consuming. But you can look at it as a relaxing exercise, and it's not something you need to think about a lot when you do it. You just have to go through that motion. It's time consuming, but it's not difficult. So here, I'm mixing up some more gray with a bit of yellow and some orange in it. So this is a bit of a muddy, dark orange color that I'm mixing up here. So I'm wetting this area first. And then I'm dropping the color into onto the wet paper. There are different techniques to doing this. In the next diamond, for example, I mainly paint on dry paper, and I don't paint wet and wet. And it still works. You can paint on dry paper. We've done this here as well. And then just use a clean wet brush to smooth out the edges or you can paint on wet paper, and the color bleeds and moves on its own through the water. It's a matter of practicality. When the segments are bigger, it's usually easier to paint on a wet paper. And when the area is super small, it makes more sense to do it wet on dry. But also it comes down to personal preference. So you can achieve the same or a very similar result with different techniques. You just need to try it out a bit and practice and then figure out which one you like best. So now I'm back to the yellow just to deepen some areas again. And I'm jumping back and forth across my diamond. So now this is just clean water again. And then I'm adding some yellow. And here I have the muddy orange mix that I just made on dry paper this time, and then smoothing out the edges like that. I don't paint with one consistent technique. I play it by ear, basically, but I also want to show you different ways of doing the same thing. So here, this is on wet paper again. This is pure orange, very concentrated, so I have a nice contrast from the lower end to the top end of this triangle. Wet and wet versus wet and dry also depends on the color and the pigment you're using. So I don't have this down to science, but there are some pigments that I frequently use, like the neutral tin, for example. And when I apply that on wet paper, it just explodes, and it just travels so fast that I already know, okay, I need to limit and control very much the amount of water I put on my paper, or I try to paint it on dry paper. This is just this varies from pigment to pigment. It varies from the brand of colors that you use. It's just something you pick up along the way as you consistently use your colors. You get used to them and you get a feel for how the different pigments act. Also switch to a smaller brush when you need to. The size of these triangles and shapes varies, and when you feel like I need a smaller brush because it's too fidgety, then do switch to a smaller brush even if I don't. H This is dark orange again. And I'm switching to yellow. And I'm also using orange down here, even though it's a yellowish area, but I think I just I feel like I need a bit more color and contrast down here. I don't want certain areas to be too uniform, like only yellow or only orange. So as I go along and as I paint, I constantly look at my whole illustration and then sporadically and spontaneously decide, Okay, here, I actually want to switch it up and add some orange just so that it's not too consistent and too boring for the eye to look at. And I'm coming back to this area again and adding some pure orange. Some pure yellow right here, keeping the top part of this little segment fairly white, just for the sake of contrast. And also why you paint your illustration, it's probably not going to look exactly like mine, and it's totally fine. It doesn't have to. Just bear in mind that you do want to paint light, and in order to paint light, you need contrast. So you need the very lightest areas to be next to the very darkest, and then you can get that effect of light reflection. So So this is the Muddy orange mix again. It's slightly more yellowish than the one I used previously. I'm mixing up such tiny amounts on my little plates that I need to redo my mixes, and then each time they're a little bit different. Which I also like. I think it's a bit more natural when there's such a variety, but subtle variety in the mixes that I use here. And this is like I already said, this is not a hyper realistic illustration. It's somewhere between realistic painting and a technical rendering of a jewelry. But I still want to think of it as a natural stone. So natural looking colors and natural broad variety of hues is something that I do want to include, so I don't want it to look too artificial. So don't worry when you have to make more of a certain colour mix and it's not exactly the same. That can actually be a good thing. I'm a fan of not stressing too much about these things that don't matter and also that no one else is gonna notice. So now I'm back to pure yellow up here. And you can see, I'm really jumping from top to bottom, left to right. And even though I'm not done with the zone at all, I'm already in the kind of, like, adjusting phase of it. So now I'm up here with some more orange. I think you get the gist of it. I think you get the idea of what I'm doing. And if you want to be a bit more, how do you say? Organized with your paint, you can also just look at what I'm doing and then go from top to bottom in your illustration. I really want to encourage to make this your own and not to try to copy 100% of what I'm doing and feel like you need to get every brushstroke, right? This is just a general guideline on how to do it, and then you can use your own color mixes. You can use a different type of gemstone. If you don't want to do tear shaped, do something else. And then when you're done, you really have something that's like your own painting. I think that's a lot more encouraging than copying from a tutorial. So here, I'm adding some orange into this yellow segment because I felt like the center part of the stone was just too much yellow, and the orange was almost only on the sides. So I'm adding a bit more in the center here, and this one up there is not strong enough. So I'm just adding some more color again. One thing that's a general tip for all kinds of painting doesn't matter if it's landscapes or portraits or jewelry or botanicals. In order to make your painting look more harmonious and put together, you always need to make sure that your darkest hues are the same darkness and your lightest hues are the same lightness and your mid tones are also, um, the same hue and tone. So that's why I think I keep saying that. But it's something that you're not really aware of when you start out with painting, and then you look at a painting and you think, like, something it just doesn't look really something is not right about it. And that's because your deepest shadows aren't all the same. And that's why when I add some more orange in one area, I go back to, like, the very top where I also have concentrated orange and I adjust it because I need all my deep orange to be the same. And that's why it's a bit of a back and forth. So this is the muddy yellowish mix again. And here I have some pure yellow. And some pure yellow down here as well. Now, I'm looking at it, trying to decide where to go. I'm adding a little bit down here, but still I do want to keep the top part of that segment almost white. And then the same thing here. Now I'm making more of the gray and yellow mix. It really has a greenish tint to it. So now I'm just painting mainly on dry paper because I'm just making some tonal adjustments. This is kind of like the last phase before I start painting the highlights with white quash. So the main colors are locked in, and I'm just trying to increase the contrast a little bit. Get the saturation that I want, and I mainly do this on dry paper because I don't want to re wet the same area three or four times because at some point, the color will start to lift off the page. So as you move along through your painting, you need to be mindful that when at some stage, you already have a lot of pigment on your paper, and then you rewet it again with water, there's a risk of the pigment just lifting, and then you have your color floating about and you get hard water lines, and it'll be a bit of a challenge to correct that. So when I when I'm almost finished with a painting, I paint on dry paper, and I also do that carefully. And as soon as I feel like, Okay, the paper is just too saturated now, it can't take any more pigment, then I leave it alone. So this is, like I said, the final stage before starting with the white wash. So I want to encourage you to look at your own painting and make your own judgment about where you need to play some more color, where you need to increase contrast. If you have several segments right next to each other that are all very light, for example, you should maybe paint the one that's in the middle dark so you have a contrast between light and dark. Otherwise, the light won't even show up. But this is where you need to look at your own painting and make that decision based on what's happening on your paper. I'm very happy to give you feedback. I wish I could do that live here. But if you just quickly upload your finished project in the discussion section or the project section, then I'm really happy to have a look at it and give you very concrete feedback on technique and on overall looks and what you've done. So please really do upload your paintings. It's not about showing off perfect work. It's about think of it as being in a classroom and submitting your homework, basically. So I wish more people would do that, so we could all learn from each other. That's a very efficient way of bettering your technique and your abilities, not just in painting in whatever you do, I think. But anyway, so, yeah, super final adjustment. I am pretty much done with the color part of this pretty yellow stone. So now I'm moving on to placing my highlights. Like I said, I have my gouache in a separate palette to keep it safe from stains from other colors. It's already dried up, so I'm wetting it and making sure I have a fairly transparent consistency. So white gouache dries very light, but I don't want to go in too strong in the beginning. So this is a very watery mix, and I'm using a slightly bigger brush now. And I'm painting on dry paper because like I said, there's already so much pigment on the page. I don't want the pigment to start floating around and start lifting. And I'm doing this as quickly as I can. So I've looked at my reference image previously and identified, like, the center, the table of the stone, it's called, where exactly it is. And then I go in with my transparent make sure it's really watery. And I place that, and now it's already dry. I'm just adding a tiny more bits of color here, and you can see how light it's dried, but you can see sorry, this is a dark gray again because it was too light next to the white highlight. You can see how light it's dried, but it already makes a difference. So this is some more gray here. I meant to have the stage finished, but now I just looked at it again, and I realized, Okay, I need more darkness, actually. And this is exactly the thing that I mentioned earlier. You need to always adjust your lights and your shadows. So now I just placed some white gouache, so everything brightened up. And then I realized, Okay, I'm actually losing contrast here. So now I'm going back in with color, dark orange and gray, and I'm creating more low lights, darkening my darkest shadows. And that will make the white gouache pop even more. So it's light and dark. It's always relative to each other. They're like a pair. So you can't just paint something. You can't just add white and to your painting and then expect to get that effect of a light reflection. So you will only achieve that when you darken your dark colors. So that's why it's, you always need to work on both simultaneously. Now I'm back with the white wash. I have my smallest brush, and now I'm starting to paint some white lines. This is more um from a technical jewelry painting, this is where I'm leaving the realistic painting alone, and I'm incorporating these details from technical jewelry rendering. I think it just adds a nice touch. It adds a nice artistic, stylized illustration touch to the painting. So that's why I decided to do that. And I'm outlining the table of the stone, and then I'll keep adding lines between the different segments to, like, separate them and to create some more interest for the eye, basically. But when you look at a photograph of a diamond, you will not see those white lines. You will see them in professional jeweleRndering. But yeah, I do it that way because I don't think I need to do either or I think I have as much artistic license as I want to have. And I can and that goes for you as well. You know, you can do your paintings the way you want to do them. You don't have to do it this way because that's the rule for technical illustrations or that way because that's the rule for hyperrealistic paintings. And I think in the end, that's what defines every artistic style. It's highly individual, and you can do whatever you want, and there's no one who can tell you like this is incorrect. No, this is my style. So that's how I like to do it. If it's too difficult for you to paint these fine lines, especially since the quash, like I said, dries very lightly, so you'll have to go over them at least one more time. And the more times you go over a thin line, the thicker it gets eventually. If that's too tough for you to do with a brush, you can use a white gel pen to do this. The ones I have, unfortunately, don't really work so well. I think I just bought the cheapest ones at the store and they don't they don't really work for me. So I do it in white quash, and I've been meaning to buy a better pencil, a better gel pen for years, I think. And then I never do it. And then each time, I'm like, Oh, man, you meant to buy a new one. So I do it with the white quash. But again, this is a case of use the material and the utensils and the type of paints that works best for you. Like, you need to think of paints and brushes and pens and pencils, whatever you're using as your tools, and they're meant to work for you. And it's just a matter of picking the ones that work best for you, regardless of what somebody else who's doing a tutorial uses. So I'm not going to do the lines between all of the segments. I will try to do them more like geometrical so that the left and the right side are a bit more uniform looking. So I also use the white highlights in the end to kind of tie it all together. H And then again, depending on how strong your white highlights are, you might or might not have to go over the center part, the table again and give it another transparent coat of quash, depending on what yours look. Here, I'm painting a segment completely opaque. You do with every piece of jewelry, have like one or three elements that are completely white because so much of the light that hits the stone bounces off it that it just looks completely white. And again, you can see just how transparently the guash dries, the color underneath and still visible, which I think is good. Here, I'm just going over those lines again, really trying my best not to make them too thick. If you need to turn your paper to do this, please do. I keep mine steady because I'm filming a tutorial, usually, I turn in my paper all the time. Now with the white, I think the stone is really starting to pop and to get that shiny look that we were going for. It's always until the very last 5 minutes of the whole painting process that this really starts to come together. Here I'm placing white next to the darkest areas. Very last final adjustments. You're painting some white lines next to the dark areas again to get that contrast. So I hope you've enjoyed painting this beautiful yellow stone with me. Please upload it here on the platform. I would be thrilled to give you feedback. And this is the final coat of whitewash. Like I said, it dries so transparently. So, congrats on finishing your piece of jewelry, and I hope you'll keep painting with me, and I'll see you in the next chapter. So 6. Round Diamond: Okay. I start with mixing the colors, and that's probably the easiest color mixing I've done in a while. I'm only using two different pigments. One is called mineral gray and the other one ultramarine ash. They're both part of this limited collection by Windsor Newton called the revival collection. So I'm just using those colors. If you don't have those specific ones, it's totally okay. You can paint this diamond with just using the gray that you have in your palette. That's probably a pains gray or a neutral tint. And if you mix two different consistencies, one that's more watery, you'll get a light gray and one that's more like a little bit of thicker, you'll get a dark gray, and then you can absolutely paint this diamond. So I'm starting here on dry paper, and I'm doing the same thing I did when I started with the yellow stone. I'm locking in the shadows and the lightest areas. Because we do need shadow and light areas, of course, but also because it will make the following steps easier when I know where my shadow is supposed to be. So I have a very watery mix. And I'm using I think this is a size two brush. It's a little bit bigger. It's not my detailed brush, but I do want to get this paint on there quickly before it starts drying because I want an even wash and not any water lines that would form when the paint starts to dry, so I'm doing this quite quickly. I'm just loading my brush with enough water and pigment so that I can do this in one go. And I'm being very mindful of my edges. I don't want to be sloppy here. So if you need to turn your paper, it's always best to turn your paper so that the outline is where the tip of your brush lies. So here I'm just twisting my hand and my wrist so so that the tip of my brush touches the outline. I would usually turn my paper, but I just want to keep it steady. I think it's easier for you to watch the tutorial that way. So I'm slouching and bending underneath the camera. And a general tip for painting something like this, if you realize, okay, you're not really fast enough to paint a larger area like this in one go, you can do two things. You can, of course, paint it wet and wet. So you put clean water on your paper first, and then you come in with the pigment. If you do that, you need to keep in mind that if you already have water on your paper, and you're using a mix that is as transparent as mine that when I use it on dry paper, you'll have too much water overall, and your pigments will explode and it'll be too light. So the water to paint ratio doesn't just play a role in your actual paint mix. It also plays a role in your painting technique. So when you do wet and wet, you need a slightly thicker paint mix because you need to keep in mind that you're adding water to it, even if that's the water that's on the page. I'm hoping I'm making sense. So if you paint wet and dry, you can have your mixes more transparent and more watery. And when you paint wet and wet, you'd have to make your paint mix a bit thicker. And if you paint wet on dry here, for example, but for some reason, your paint dries faster or you're not quick enough to cover a larger area, and just paint up to the next line of the next segment. And when you get a hard water line there, it doesn't matter as much and it probably won't even be visible anymore when you're done. So here, I'm just rubbing out the lines of where I did not paint any color. These are my, like, super light highlights that I want to keep, and I also don't want any pencil lines there. And I'm also erasing the Oh. Oh, I'm racing over there. Trying to rub out as much of a pencil as I can. And now everything has dried. So before you move on to the next layer, make sure everything is really dry. And a good way to make sure is to touch your paper with your fingers and when they're not cool to the touch anymore. So when your paper has the same temperature as your hand, then you know it's really, really dry. And as long as it's still a bit cool, it means it's still a little bit damp, and then you should just wait a couple of minutes more. This is still the same type of gray. It's more or less the same consistency, but it gets darker now because we already have a base layer on the paper. Watercolors are transparent, so you can build up color and you can build up depth and values by adding the same type of consistency on top of each other. They add up, so to speak. I'm not using the size too brush anymore. As you can see, I switch to a smaller one. Please do use the smallest one that you need. And I am going to just block in a number of triangles and shapes in the same color mix. It's very straightforward. It's very beginner friendly. So with this one, this one is also a bit less complicated than the yellow one. So here we really just have paint by numbers. And if you want to do your own thing and maybe watch a movie, you can also skip ahead when I'm done with this color around minute 14 and then hit pause and then just block in all of those segments that I'm painting in now. If you don't want to watch me do it. It's all the same technique on dry paper. A if you're new to painting something that's actually colorless or white, then you maybe don't know that painting colorless and painting white actually means painting in different tones of gray. So also white flowers, for example, like a lily or a white rose. They're also very popular subjects for watercolor illustrations, and the way to paint them is to paint different tones of gray, and that will actually make a white flower. And with this diamond here, the diamond itself is colorless. But when you photograph it or yeah, look at a photograph of one, you'll see that the way the light reflects on it, it's just a bunch of light gray, medium and dark gray little areas, white highlights, speckles of black here and there. And then depending on the surrounding of the stone, there are also some little colourful, tiny colorful reflections. So maybe like speckles of yellow or blue or something. But that's basically it. So a colorless stone will be painted in hues of gray. So I'm just working my way all around my outlines here. I find that this is a very relaxing painting exercise. You can practice painting neatly and staying inside the lines. But there's not much you have to think about. There's not much to watch out for. You can't really make any huge mistakes here right now. It's just placing triangles on dry paper. So you can really switch off your brain and just keep doing this and it's more meditative these types of paintings than, let's say, landscapes, for example, I find personally. And you can clearly see here how, even though I'm using the same consistency of paint, it just gets naturally darker because I've already blocked in my shadow. So I'm jumping back and forth a little bit, just because I keep looking at the stone overall, and then as soon as I identify an area where I need to add a little more, I just do it right away. And I've started as I move down towards the bottom right, I started painting like smaller triangles, than the ones I did in the very beginning. So now I'm also adding some smaller ones here on the opposite side so that it all matches. And I didn't paint all of those in in the outline because it would have been too overwhelming to trace them all, and it's not necessary, especially since we're painting all of them in the same color. So I included more segments in the yellow stone because there we have, like, color gradients and almost different color in every segment. But here, since I'm painting in just two different colors, you can really draw in more random triangles and shapes in the outline that I provided you with. So you have a basic grid, so to speak, and then you can just add your own. And the only thing that you need to kind of keep in mind is to have an even spread of smaller and slightly bigger ones across your diamond so that it looks nice in uniform. But it's also good not to have everything in your outline because the reflections are random and they're supposed to look random. And it's very hard to try to paint something that's supposed to be random. So this is kind of like a good exercise in letting go of the rigidness of trying to plan everything in your painting. So that's why yeah, this one is not loose, but here you have to just add your own. So all of our stones, everyone who does this tutorial, they're all gonna look a bit different. And I think that's really nice. And it's also a good representation of reality because every stone looks different depending on how the light hits it in that second when you take a photograph of it. So yeah, this is an exercise in deliberately painting something that's supposed to look random. It's harder than it sounds, actually. So now I think I have a good coverage of my mineral gray, and I'm just adding the last ones here and there, and then I'm going to switch to my other color, the ultramarine ash. It's not a super dark gray. It just has a slightly bluish tint to it, which I thought I like, and I'll just wanted to try it out how it looks on a jewelry illustration. But like I said, you can also just use the gray that you have and you can maybe add a little bit of blue and and you'll get a different hue. So now what you can do and what I'm doing is I am, of course, starting with the different gray in areas where I only have the base layer down, but I'm also painting them over the second layer, the one that we just did previously, because I don't want to lose all of my light areas. So that's why you can see how I paint over the ones that we just did, and that way, I'm adding a bit more shadow, a bit more depth, but I'm not losing my highlight areas. The ones that only have the very first wash. So I do want to preserve the light because as soon as you lose the light, especially in a colorless stone, it just doesn't good anymore. You're not going to get that effect of light being reflected. So I'm being mindful of not losing too many light areas. And also, just, bear in mind that you want to spread these out fairly evenly. And that's why it's also maybe good to jump back and forth in your illustration. Because if you start in one area and then you go maybe clockwise, by the end, you're three quarters of the way done, you realize Oh God, I painted way too many, but that's already done. And when you jump across your illustration, you can add it here and you can add it there. And then you can just build a uniform spread of little segments that you're blocking. So it's already getting quite busy here. And I think you can really see how there's a general geometric grid or structure in the stone. That's the outline that I gave you. And then there's a nice variety of random reflections, and those are the triangles that I didn't put into the outline, but that I just painted as I went along. So that's a really nice balance that I have here in illustration. I'm quite happy with it. So I think that's about it with the ultramarine ash. And now I'm going back to the mineral gray, the one I used previously. And Now, this makes a little bit more concentrated than the one I used in the beginning, and I just need to create some darker tones so that my highlights will pop and really come to life in the end. So we're again, building contrast. But I don't need a different color to do that. I can just use the same one, but a thicker consistency. And that's really one of the things I love about watercolor is this transparent look that they have compared to, I don't know, acrylics. I mean, some acrylics are also semi transparent, but they're mostly opaque. And if you have an opaque color, that's just what it looks like, whereas when you paint with transparent colors like watercolor, if you use a thinner consistency, it almost looks like a different color. It's so nice and see through, and then you just use a thicker mix of paint, and it's much darker. And so you can use the same paint, the same pigment, but really paint light and dark with them. I love that. And you can build color and yeah, I think watercolors are really the perfect medium to painting jewelry. Guache is also transparent when you water it down, of course. They're in the same family. Watercolors and Guache. So here I'm just looking at my reference photo and then comparing it to my illustration, trying to see where I need to add more contrast and a bit more depth. And again, I am painting over the already darker triangles because I don't want to lose my lighter areas. So I think my stone is looking busy enough. I have nice lighter areas. I have some areas that have a slightly bluish tintllin and I have medium and dark gray. I still have my shadows blocked in on the upper middle left area and the bottom right area. That's still visible, even though I've painted over it. So I think everything looks nice and even, and I can start with the white quash. So here I have whitewash. It's not super watery because I'm trying to paint white lines here. So it's like a medium, thick consistency. And what I'm doing is I'm drawing over the lines that you'll find in your outline. And that will do two things that will create some high highlights and get that sparkly look going that we want for a diamond. And it will also give us back a sense of orientation because we're like, reintroducing a bit of symmetry after we've painted so many random little triangles. So I'm just bringing those lines back. It's the square in the middle. If you want to do this with a white gel pen, that is probably the easier way to do it. So you're very welcome not to do this with a brush but with a pen. And now there's a second square that's overlapping with the first one, and then we get this star formation. If you're doing this with gouache and a brush like I'm doing and not a gelpin, make sure your consistency is not too watery because if it's too watery, then you won't even you'll barely see the white paint once it's dried, it dries very transparent. So I have it just watery enough so that I can paint it on a thin line. And I will have to go over it again, I think. And then there's this cross there in the middle that divides the triangle, the squares, sorry. So I'm not adding white lines between all the little different segments, of course. I just want to get that sense of symmetry. A, and then adding more up here. And here I'm going over the lines because they've already dried and I can see that they're not really visible enough. These are two triangles that I've kept white, so they are the white of the paper. I am painting them with white quash still because the white of the paper is not the same white as the white quash. It has the slightest yellowish tint to it, the paper. So I just want to make it really, really super white, so I'm painting, adding some whitewash. Now, this is a bit more watery and because I want the layers underneath to shine through. I'm painting on dry paper. Here as well. And now with these reflections, I feel like the stone is starting to sparkle a bit. You have to be patient until you're finished with your white garage at the end. Don't get discouraged when you feel like, Oh, I'm doing all of this, but it doesn't really look like it's sparkly. It usually is just until the very last 10 minutes when you add those white highlights that it really comes to life. So I feel like with jewelry, you're much longer stuck in the so called ugly phase of your painting than with botanicals, maybe your landscapes. But as long as you know that, it's fine and I don't worry about it anymore. So here I'm adding white gouache over my lighter areas as well because I really want them bright white. It Here I'm adding white next to between two darker segments to increase contrast. Now I'm just looking at my stone and I'm thinking, Okay, where can I place white so that it really creates contrast? Usually, that's between two darker elements. Here I'm just going over this one because it dried too lightly. Here I'm placing white next to a darker area. I'm just going over these lines again. So now it's more or less just about making final adjustments, and you need to look at your own diamond and try to decide where you need more highlights and where you need more contrast. And you can also when you're busy with the white wash, go back to your gray colors and maybe darken the darkest areas again. If you feel like you need to make your diamond pop a little bit more off the page. So here, I'm just brightening this whole area because we said the light was going to come from the top left, and the stone is like, curved on the outside edges, and it's just flat in the middle, what's called the table. So I'm brightening up the whole top left side, where the light hits it, and then right next to it. In the top left of the table, it's a bit darker because that's where that light casts a shadow inside the stone. So I'm just going over some of the areas that I've already dried and are a bit too transparent for my taste. So I'm just making them a little bit stronger. And I'm usually done with a painting when I look at it. Sometimes it helps to just step away from it for a minute and then look at it from a bit of a distance. And then when I feel like I have a nice even amount of highlights, midtones and shadows or darker colors, that's when I usually decide that I'm done. So, yeah, you can see how my brush is starting to wander over the illustration. I'm trying to decide where I need a bit more and where it's okay. So I think I am about to be done with this. If you finished yours, which I hope you did, I would love to see it in the project section. So please upload it and especially do so if you want feedback from me. When you have the opportunity to ask someone for feedback, I think you should absolutely do it. It speeds up your learning curve. So, yeah, this is pretty much it. I hope you're happy with your white diamond and I hope you will paint another stone with me in the next chapter. A 7. Emerald: Welcome back. We're going to paint the last of our three gemstone, which is a beautiful emerald. So as you can see, I switch to a different palette, and I already have a bunch of greens here. I have a light green mix, which is cinnabar green and orlein yellow. Then I have a darker green, which is viridian hue and cinnabar green. Then this is the pure viridian hue. It's a beautiful turquoise color. And then I'm going to mix a very dark green, and I'm going to mix viridian hue with the orange that's in this revival collection. And as you can see, two complimentary colors make a very dark mix, adding a bit more green here because it's too orange, and this will give me a very dark green. Now, if you don't have those precise colors that I have to mix a light green, you can, for example, use sap green and then add lemon yellow. For a medium green, you can just use pure sap green or sap green dark or hookers green dark. And then for the darker green, you would use maybe hookers green dark and add a little bit of orange to it. So you don't have to use the exact colors that I'm using. Now, I'm starting here with the darkest green, which is my viridian green and orange mix, and I'm painting on dry paper. I have a bit of a different approach to painting this emerald because I want to give you different ways or I want to show you different ways of painting those gemstones. So with the yellow gemstone, we had an approach where we had a first light wash and then added colors and added depth. It was a bit of a more a slower approach, but one that guarantees you result and you don't have to take any risks with going in with a super dark color right away. Then we had the round diamond, which was just two colors and white, and I showed you what you can achieve with just two different grays, or even just 1 gray. And now with the emerald, I thought, Let's do it different one more time. And I'm going in with my strongest, darkest color right on the white paper. I'm not going to do an underpainting or a base layer or a base wash, as people call it. And I'm just let's just go for it. And let's see if we can achieve a really good result in just one or two layers. So this is just to illustrate you that you can really have different approaches to achieving the same result. So I'm starting with my darkest colors, and then I'll go from there and base my midtones and my lightest colors according to or in relation to my darkest green. And I am, of course, looking at the reference photo. I could also freestyle this one. And that's one reason why I actually think that painting jewelry, even though it looks, like, super complicated when you don't know how to do it, it looks like, Oh, wow, I need to be, like, super advanced to do this. No, you don't the reason why I think jewelry and gemstones are actually a really good beginner friendly subject to paint is because the light reflections are so random that you can't really make a mistake in painting them. So even though even if you painted, for example, your darkest colors, like in a completely different area than I did just now, your emerald would come out just as nicely, and no one could tell you, Oh, but the dark green is supposed to be in this corner, and now it's looking all wrong, and you have to start over again. So that's why randomness and reflections are your friend because nobody can tell you they're supposed to be this way or that way. Here I have my light green mix, and I painted it on dry paper. And now, while it's still wet, I'm going in with my dark green mix. This is called charging, dropping one color into another one that's still wet. And I'm smoothing it over, adding much, much more dark color here. And there I have my contrast, which for the yellow stone, took me at least two layers to do. So if you're quick enough, if you've got your colors ready, you can do this in one go. And again, I can't stress this enough. Everything is about contrast and about light and darkness. So place your lightest colors next to your darkest colors, and then you're more or less good to go. So this is the dark green mix again while my light green mix is still wet, dropping it in there. And then I'm cleaning off my brush a little bit, and I can smooth out the colors. Adding some more Here, I'm adding some water first because it's a slightly larger area. And I want to make sure that my wash is nice and even. This is the light green mix again. So for me, this is cinnabar green and Oelein yellow. For you, it might be sap green and lemon yellow, depending on what you have in your palette. And doing this wet in wet allows me to really get an even coverage there and it's still wet and I have enough time to drop in some very concentrated dark green. If you have a wet surface to paint on, make sure that the color you're dropping in is really concentrated and not too watery so that it doesn't spread uncontrollably across the area that you want to paint it. Now I'm painting in pure yellow. Leven yellow would be my choice of color if I didn't use this special collection. And then I'm dropping in some light green. It's almost like a neon green. Like, I love the vibrancy of this mix. And then I'm smoothing it out. Here I'm using my smallest detail brush because I want to make sure that my edges are nice and clean. Here I'm dry paper now. The area next to it has dried. And this is the dark green mix again. Always make sure you let one area dry or one segment dry before you paint right next to it so that the colors don't bleed into each other. Here I have the light green mix again on dry paper. And while it's still wet, I'm dropping in the dark green, cleaning off my brush on the paper towel, and then smoothing out the dark into the light so that it's a nice gradient. This is pure viridian green. I like that it's almost like a turquoise green. It has a bit of an aqua look to it that I think works really well when painting emeralds. And here, again, while it's wet, I'm charging it with my dark green mix. Adding some more viridian Up here, again, this is pure viridian. Next to the dark green, that makes for a nice contrast. Then while it's still wet, I'm dropping in some more dark green. The dark green on top of the viridian will look a bit different than just the dark green on its own because both colors are wet, so they do mix with each other on the paper still. So it'll be still my dark hue, but a slightly different tint to it, which I think it's just nice. It increases variety and just adds a bit more interest to the painting still. Now this is the light green mix with Vidian. Here, I'm just painting some more pure yellow. Even though an emerald is a greenstone, there are different colors in there still, so there's also yellow in it, just like our yellow stone had hues of browns in it as well and grays. And then I'm dropping in the light green mix. Between those two super dark ones, I'm deciding to paint pure yellow. And I already love how this stone is coming together. I think this one will be my favorite one out of the three just because the colors are so nice and vibrant. And then charging it with some dark green again. And you can adjust your greens. So some artists like to mix all of their own greens, and they don't have any green in their palette. I do have like two or three greens, but I still adjust them. So for example, like I did here, or like I said in the beginning when I was mixing the colors, if you have, hookers green dark, you can still darken that by just adding a tiny amount of orange to it. Or if you have a sap green, you can brighten that up by adding a bit of yellow. So even if you have ready made greens in your palette, think it just adds so much more interest to a painting when you play around with them and change them up a little bit. So here I'm painting wet and wet because, again, this is a slightly larger area, so I'm putting down some water first with my small brush. And then I'm adding the light green mix, just like I did before with the triangles, and now I have enough time to really make sure my edges are nice and clean and I can move it around and make sure it's all super smooth. And then I can add the dark green like in one go on that side of it. And then I can clean it up and smooth it out. Adding some more light green just to adjust the total value. This is pure viridian, just to add some more bluish tones into the side of the stone. And adding the dark green again into the pure Pyridian. Now, this is the light green mix again on dry paper. H. So more pure viridian here. And while it's still wet dropping in the dark green again, oh what's very useful about just repeating the same technique over and over again is that it's really the best type of practice. So what you're doing here is the same thing 45 times, you're dropping a dark color into a light color and then you're smoothing it out and you want to achieve a soft gradient. And the more often you do that, the better you feel for, okay, how concentrated or how watery does my dark mix need to be? How much paint do I need to still control it, all of that stuff. And so this is repetitive exercise. While you're working on an actual illustration, so it's not just on a sheet of exercise where you're just filling out random squares with this technique. So I think this is a really good way to practice charging. But it's not just for the sake of practicing, it's also for the sake of actually painting a nice illustration. So it's a good two and one. This is pure cinnabar green and then yellow next to it. I'm not using the cinnabar on its own a lot here because I just like the mixers better. I think mixing it with the yellow to get this, neon bright green, it's just a more vibrant color than the cinnabar green on its own. Like, I also wouldn't use sap green on its own here a lot. I think it would look a bit bland and boring. This is the light green mix on dry paper. And I'm dropping in the dark green. Adding some more because the contrast wasn't strong enough. And then down here, I have the light green mix again, which has a bit more yellow in it. Then I'm adding some pure yellow there. And this is a dark green mix on dry paper for the little corner. So for a symmetric illustration like this, I like to sometimes do the opposite of what I have on the other side. So on the other side here on the bottom right, I have, yellow and light green. So on the bottom left, I'm painting it in dark green so that it doesn't look too boring because the shapes are the same. The shapes are the same shape. And so I want to just add variety by painting them a different color. This was Viridian and now the dark green mix again. Cleaned off my brush and I'm smoothing out the color. This is pure viridian. A, And then I'm adding the dark mix. You can see that it's very creamy and a thick consistency. It's barely moving. So the more water you have in your paint mix, the faster it travels, of course, when you add it to a wet surface. Here, this is my light green mix again on dry paper. And then some pure viridian. And adding in the Tarquin mix. Up here, some more viridian. And then I'm adding some cinnabaGreen. And some more yellow on this side. Man. Now I'm going straight in with the dark green on dry paper because the segments left and right to it are both fairly light. So I decided for to create more contrast. I'm going to go super dark in between. That will make the light one stand out a bit more. So up here I have the light green mix again. Quite concentrated. A And then I'm dropping in the dark green. Cleaning off my brush, smoothing it out a little bit, adding more pure viridian up there. Now I'm just looking at the reference photo. This is the dark green mix on dry paper because the segment left to it is very light, so I'm contrasting it with adding a super dark little segment. And then, again, this is pure Verdean. It's shaping up to be the main color of the emerald. And I'm adding a bit more of the dark green cleaning off my pasion, then smoothing it over again. Then over here, also going straight in with the dark green mix. Just cleaning up that edge. And then we're back to pure viridian. Uh, then down here, some light green because the segments left and right to it are very dark, so I need a little bit of lightness in between there, down here, same thing. Now I'm looking at the reference photo, deciding where to go. There's a tiny little triangle there, and then some pure yellow. And then some dark green. Blending the dark green mix with the yellow is a bit more challenging than blending it with the light green mix or viridian. It's hard for me to pronounce for some reason, viridian. It's a bit of a tongue twister. And then up here, I keep going with the yellow and adding some light green. I'm saying light and dark green, but on the top left corner, I'm giving you the name of the colors because I think one has to get used to the color names, the names of the pigments and not just saying dark blue and light blue. So that's why I keep giving you the names up there. So here, again, there's the contrast with yellow and dark green, and I'm trying to smooth it over as best I can. And then I leave it alone, and I let it dry the way it dries. And I know not to fuss with it. And if I'm not happy with the transition of dark green to yellow, I'll just add another layer to smooth it over a bit, but I know not to fuss with it too much while the colors are wet because then it would look messy and it would be harder to correct. So that was a super light wash of Bridian And then some more light green mix next to the yellow one down here. And adding the dark green. Is that more aridian? If you don't have aridian, I'm just trying to think what else you could have used, maybe, like, a cobalt turquoise. I'm telling you now after we're almost done. This is more of a meridian here on dry paper. And some more dark green. So as the segments are shilling up with colors, you can already guess that we're almost done with the color part of this emerald. Then we're going to continue and finish with whitewash like we did with the other two. Here I just adding more dark green on dry paper. I'm leaving a tiny little stripe of white here to separate the two dark green segments. Here I'm adding some very concentrated dark green and I'm smoothing it out into the light viridian. And then down here, I'm adding light green, and then I'll also add contrast, but this time by adding more light green on the top so that I have a nice separation between the light segment that's next to it on the left side. So here this is the same light green but very concentrated, which makes it darker. I'm continuing with this down here. And up here as well. And dropping in some more dark green blending it I'm looking at the reference photo. So just a few more to go, and then we can continue with whitewash. Here, I'm dropping in some dark green, but it's a bit more difficult because the segment is quite small. So I'm just using a tiny amount of color. And then I let it be because I don't want to fuss with it too much. A bit more some more yellow highlights. And I'm dropping in a bit more of the dark green, but I'm being careful because I don't want to mess up the bright yellow that I have on the top of this little stripe. And then it's viridian up here again. This is quite watery. So it's very transparent. And here, I'm putting down some water and then dropping in the light green mix. And I actually want to keep it white towards the middle. So this is basically it for color, and now I already have the white wash. And I have a very transparent mix for now. I've waited until all of my green was completely dry, and now I am carefully. You can't see how careful I am, but actually I am carefully just placing it on top and I don't want to wake up my dark green colors. I feel like darker pigments, dark colors, they lift a bit more easily than lighter ones. So for that reason, I'm being cautious with the white wash. I don't want any of the green to lift and then mix with the white wash, and then it will just be a mess. So I have a transparent mix there. A going over several segments in one go. I'm just cleaning up the edges, but I'm trying not to fuss with it too much. Really, leave it alone, let it dry and then see if you're happy with it once it's dried. And up here, I'm also adding a wash of transparent gouache. And now I have a thicker consistency, and I'm going to paint some white lines as outlines and to, like, reinforce the symmetry of the cut of the stone. It's the same thing that I've done with the previous ones. And again, I'm making sure that I don't paint them too thick, because that would kind of, like, take away the elegance of the illustration. And I'm doing this carefully. I don't want my lines to be too thick. I want them nice and thin. And then in a second, my camera is going to start because the memory card was full. And so there's a few minutes of footage lost, but all I'm doing is adding these lines, and then you'll see in a second. So this is all of the stones done, and I hope you're happy with your illustration, and I really hope you're going to upload a picture of it in the project section here. Thank you for watching. 8. Summary and Next Steps: And that's your diamond paintings finished. I hope you're not still intimidated by painting jewelry. Now that you know how to paint precious stones, you can also check out my other class and learn how to paint metals like silver and gold, and then you're already not a beginner in jewelry painting anymore. Please do give this class a rating if you enjoyed it. That really helps me more than you know. And if you'd like any feedback, just upload your project here in the course section, and I'm very happy to have a look at it. I'll see you in the next course.