Jewelry Doodles Made Simple: Sketching Fun Rings & Pendants

1. Welcome!: Hi. My name's Gezer Pick Brenna. I'm a three D goldsmith, artist, and top teacher on Skillshare. From the earliest I can remember, I always loved to draw. It was something that came naturally to me and has been a steady companion throughout my whole life. Since I went into jewelry and three D design as a career, this has served me well and often helped me with gathering and presenting ideas, as well as to unwind, refresh, and to have fun away from any computer. In this class, I want you to find joy with a free, creative sketching flow to tickle out your imagination and help you bring out some buried treasures from your inner island of wonders and vision. To be more precise, we will follow some quick and easy exercises to sketch our personal and original jewelry design ideas. Without any pressure, we will follow the pure enjoyment of bringing out some hidden gems from our inner creative wonderland. Throughout, I share many tips and pointers on how I approach this whole fascinating process in general. We create a map of meaning to find the things that hold value for us personally. We then dive into sketching, both from an angle of mindful self care and relaxation, as well as for artistic expression. I also share some tips on how to color your favorite results. We will dabble, maybe with image generation AI, talk about further steps to prepare for three modeling or options for handicraft realization. This class is for anyone who wants to rediscover and ignite their creativity, learn something about jewelry design, or just simply likes drawing and illustrating and is excited to try something new. You don't need specific drawing expertise. It is absolutely not only for jewelry designers, but for everyone who wants to uncover their own creativity. Taking this class is also valuable if you want to design a piece of jewelry for yourself or a love being and search for some guidance on how to approach this. Join me for this creative adventure. Let's dive in and have fun together. 2. Your Project: Thank you so much for taking this class. I'm excited to have you here. Today, we will be taking it easy. We will create a sketch collection of jewelry ideas. Let it flow. This is a mind freeing blockade unblocking, go for it without thinking class. We will start with some thoughts on jewelry in general, an overview of the different types and shapes to give you inspiration and some guiding principles on which you might spread your design wings. Afterwards, we will continue with finding inspiration through different guiding prompts and images. We will finish this phase of searching by settling on some topics that are especially dear to us right now. Right below that, I've included a short drawing warm up and some quick basic shape exercise. You may absolutely skip these if you feel ready to tackle a relatively straightforward drawing project, I want to jump right in. However, I promise you won't regret bearing with me. And then we will already dive headlong into the sketching phase. While following along, you will dive into your own personal creative wonderland. You will probably end up with one or more sheets full of different ideas, both written and drawn and maybe even more than that. But the most important thing is the journey of idea exploration itself. There might be some surprises happening along the way. Maybe you will discover some hidden gems you never knew were there. And, of course, you will find more than one practical suggestion of what you could do afterwards with all these new ideas. Absolutely make sure to share your amazing creations in the project gallery at the end. All parts of the class can be standalone. This class is meant to inspire you in every way and on every step, not feel like a bore or a chore. 3. Materials: All we need are some drawing supplies of your choice. Pencil, paper, any eraser can be helpful and super straightforward. You may use the back of a grocery store coupon and any old pencil if you like, or the finest sketching paper. Or if you want, go for your tablet and any drawing software. Colors are completely optional, like felt tippens, crayons or even watercolor. Some other helpful things are some white ink, pen or thick watercolor for highlights, a divider for circles, and maybe a ruler. But don't stress about these. 4. Introduction to Jewelry Design: Let's now dive right into a little introduction about the magic of jewelry design, jewelry history and meaning in a human context. When we approach jewelry sketching, there are a few things that are helpful to keep in mind. There are a few basic geometric shapes that come up again and again in jewelry, square, triangle, circle, spiral, oval, rectangle, and their infinite variations like stars, rhomboids, or hearts, for example. In jewelry, symmetry is often used to support the feeling of beauty and balance. Asymmetry gives a more unshackled feel and it often invokes more visual interest. It can also feel more agitated than calm. Often, symmetric pieces have some small aspects of asymmetry to make them even more compelling. Just like in nature, there's no perfect symmetry. Nature in general is both a great teacher and inspiration for all kinds of jewelry and art. Often, symmetry evolves around the body's center line. Pennons, left and right earrings, and ring tops are also very often symmetrical. In general, jewelry is something worn, and so it is good if it at least loosely adheres to the body shape. A very straightforward example of this is a ring. Yet, there's also jewelry, which is super imaginative and can push the boundaries of even being called jewelry. Strange face masks, apparetti which are coiled around the body like snakes, nails that appear to go through your thumb or even a VIP card hanging around your neck or sunglasses in your hair can all be seen as adornments of the body, which defines jewelry at its core. So if you want to push the boundaries of what could be called jewelry, go for it. Looking at all these different pieces can also often be the best source of inspiration. In general, studying other people's art can ignite a great spark in us. Think of your favorite visual artist, a piece of music, a sculptural installation or a certain architectural style. We can find inspiration for our work in the wonderful work of others. Seeing what's possible will help us gain a deeper understanding of the possibilities and artistic language we could employ. It will reveal to us what's pleasing to the eye or exciting and astonishing. Never directly copy, but still with the eyes and get inspired. One further aspect that is connected to basic shapes is negative space. Negative space is used a lot in art and sculpture and just as well in jewelry. In graphic design, it is known as white space. This is referring to the empty area surrounding the artwork, and it can also refer to empty space or a background color between the objects. It gives the observer visual breathing room and emphasizes the actual subject. Is a kind of contrast with the artwork in itself that also helps to create balance and avoids sensual overwhelm. So if you take a look at a piece of art or jewelry next time, maybe try to pay attention to the negative space as well if there is any and how it is used. Other aspect that makes for intriguing jewelry design is movement, as the body moves, so does jewelry, simply because of their physicality, earrings dangle, a pendant sways, a jointed bracelet articulates, but that's not all. Many designers like to build an intentional but not strictly necessary element of movement into their pieces. Be it via hinges, jumpings, chains, magnets, soft material, or even small motors. There are many possibilities on how we can introduce playful movement into otherwise rigid shapes. Jewelry has a great role to play in communicating social status, affiliation with a certain group, expression of style, or zeitgeist, telling of stories, and so much more. It is, in essence, a way of expression for human creativity, identity, and mind. It is an integral part of human culture. By the way, jewelry is one of the oldest types of archaeological artifacts. There is a specific type of shell called Nazarius which was supposedly already worn as jewelry 100,000 years ago. Isn't that totally insane, if you think about it? So, in doing what we are doing here, we are part of one of the oldest traditions of humanity overall. The most timeless jewelry is often the most simple. Think about wedding rings. They are often only a ring, nothing more or the absolutely iconic Tiffany engagement ring. Simple and straightforward often has the most impact. Like with any design, you could try to reduce so much until you can't reduce anymore. However, if you go for a Bollywood Tiara or a Thai Queen's crown, disregard what I just said and have fun indulging to the limit. As for types, there are rings, pennants, brooches, earrings, bangles, necklaces, tiaras, crowns. There are many more sub types of jewelry. Yet, these are some of the most commonly seen and worn. Also, there are multiple types of materials. Precious metals like gold, silver, platinum or palladium are an all time classic. Yet jewelry can also consist of pearls, all kinds of gemstones, or other less common substances like glass, feather, hair, cloth, leather, wood, and basically anything else you can think of. Last but not least, each human culture had and has its own distinctive views of design vocabulary, particular patterns, artistic elements, or specific use of materials. I offered you many examples of very different epochs and regions, traditions and cultures, ancient as well as contemporary. It is very worthwhile to dive into the history of jewelry to enrich your own comprehension and expression. 5. Map of Meaning: We will now create our very own personal map of meaning. This will help us to get the creative juices flowing and also gives us a clear direction for our designs. I find this little exercise to be so helpful and inspiring, so I hope it will be for you, too. Inspiration can be all around us. There are so many ways to get inspired and to find things that are meaningful to you. Think of nature, emotions, fashion, animals, architecture, whatever comes to mind or that has recently kind of struck your interest. Write down some keywords that you find interesting and that spark some engagement into your heart and soul. If there are already symbols coming to mind like heart or stars or moon or planets or tree or fish, something like that, then let's draw them just very abstract, next to the topics and words, small. Okay? So let's say I had a great vacation recently. You explored some beautiful areas, and you are completely enchanted with what you encountered. You learn so many new things about this world and about people and about what exists. And maybe there were some things that stayed in your mind. Maybe there was a beautiful beach. And there were waves. Or you ate some ice cream. Or you found some shells sea shells. Or you remember the palm trees. Or you had a very good cocktail with some cool people that you enjoyed very much. They were very kind and friendly, and you just had the best evening, and maybe it was even the specific brand of beer or maybe you remember this very night under the big moon, and it was very warm. And you enjoyed it so much, or maybe you remember some architecture when you went back to the city, and you remember some history of that place with some landmarks. You know, and all of these things, they kind of hold meaning for you, right? I mean, not specifically those things. Maybe you would have written on something completely different. So it is a very personal thing. Okay? It holds personal emotional value for us. And just like that, we find things that hold meaning for us, okay? Or another example, maybe you or someone you cared about had a child recently. Right. And it was a wedding, as well. Okay, so there is a connection between these things, and maybe you think of those little feet. They are so cute, right? Um, or maybe at the wedding, maybe it was your sister's wedding or your own or you're planning your wedding. And you really like Doves. You would like to have doves. And you mentioned them flying for you and or you really like white roses, and you would like to have a bunch of them at your wedding, or you would like to drive in a limousine once, or you would invite all the friends and everyone who's in your heart. And so you think of a heart where all the names of your friends are in and these things, right? They are like symbols, little symbols that are like landmarks for our personal, emotional landscape. Or you have a hobby, right? So that would be a vacation. And just putting that here, so people, right? So there can be people who really touch us and things that people do or you have a hobby? Maybe you're an athlete. Maybe you'll really like biking. Maybe you like jogging. Maybe you're a ballerina. You know, all these things, maybe you're a musician. There are so many things that can hold meaning for us or we like to play chess or whatever. Or maybe when it comes to people, of course, don't forget your pet. Right? Dogs, cats, and everything in between. So this is just a little I wouldn't call it mind map. I would rather call that soul map or map of meaning. Okay, so that is our map of meaning. And it holds specific points and symbols that are important to us personally that strike some chord in our soul. Or another option would be Um, if you're already experienced with designing with different materials, and you're maybe more inclined on focusing on a specific material, yes. So that, too, can be a very exploratory and rewarding exercise to think about. What kind of materials do you like? I mean, sure, everyone likes gold, right? But maybe you like cloth. Maybe you like silk. Or leather. You know, you can do jewelry with all materials under the sun. People actually have made jewelry out of animal intestines. Yes. Some contemporary artists do this, and it is, for some reason, also called jewelry. So yes, if you're so inclined. But of course, there's also porcelain. If we go back to the somehow more conservative materials, you get my point, right? O paper. There are so many options. And if you feel that you would like to work with some of these or you already have experience with working with some of these, then write that down and take note of it that you would like to explore some of those materials. So I will next to that word map of Meaning, I like to call these our soul topics. Because these make us excited, they inspire us and we have some kind of emotional connection. So make sure to not do one thing here, do not censor yourself. If you want to write down something like intimacy, and you have all kinds of ideas that are connected to that, like lingerie or high heels or any other topic that might be a little bit on the fringes, right? Don't hold back. That is your personal space here, and you should really live out your inner calling. So, yeah. Let's give it at that for now, and of course, you don't have to share everything with everyone. Maybe you have some private ideas or maybe you have some that you want to share with everyone. Then please share them in the project gallery. Of course, you could do that in a very elaborate way. You could do that with colors. You could do that with all kinds of shapes and symbols. That is really just the baseline version here. But when I sketch, I like to keep things simple and free flowing, so I won't take too much time with this and just make sure that I get all my ideas on paper. Refinement comes later. 6. Settle on a Topic: Start: Hopefully, you had some fun and maybe even created some very unexpected connections on your little map of meaning there. Now, let's turn this mind map into a soul map. Let's find the things that speak to us the most. This will become the basis for our design. Alright, so now you have your soul topics laid out for yourself. And, of course, feel free to decorate this in any way you like or maybe transfer this on another piece of paper, which is more suitable for long term storage. But I really like to just keep that loose and free and sometimes it's nice to have something that is not too tight, you know, too important feeling, but important slice in the meaning. But you'll see I'm already getting ahead of myself here and scribbling on there with some silver pens. So you'll see I'm already starting to build on this. But anyways, from all the different topics, settle on a few that interest you especially currently. Settle on a few that you really really like. So I use some gold here to draw. And let's say, I have found that I really would like to include my hobby. And one of my dearest hobbies is singing. Oh. Hello. So I really love singing, and I feel like I would like to bring that into the into my soul topics. And I also I think I really like ice cream. That is something so mundane but so wonderful, right? So I will mark the ice cream. And I think I would work with gold here and silver, like the traditional jewelry materials and gemstones and maybe pearls. A I don't know. I I will be open. And I think yeah, the vacation and the hobby and the material, those will be enough for now. So don't stress about it. You can always come back to them, of course, and choose more of them or switch between them. But that is just so that we have something to start with, you know, so that we settle on, Okay, I want to focus on the vacation part, and I want to focus on the hobby part. It's even okay if you just choose one, so if I just choose one, then maybe Um, it's hard. Ice cream or singing. I'm having a hard time deciding here. Okay, so if you have a hard time deciding, I will just say I like them both. And I would like to work with them both. Alright? So I really enjoyed the vacation. I enjoy my hobby, and I want to do something with both of these. Okay, so for now, let's settle on some that you want to start with. And it should be something that speaks to you, not only because it is an interesting topic, but because you have, obviously, by now, an emotional connection with it. It should feel warm and fuzzy when you think about this, okay? This is a good sign that you found the little spark igniter inside you that reacts to certain things you just connect with. Okay? And it can be something as straightforward and mundane as ice cream. But, you know, I think the world would be a worse place if there was no ice cream. So it has some meaning, for sure. So try to approach this very intuitively. Don't think about it too much, but just reach out spontaneously to what you find fascinating. Then draw circle or heart around those that open up this special connection. And finally, let's just choose one of those which you'd like to start with. Again, do not overthink this. We are not in a competition of any kind. We don't need to have results of any kind. We're just going for what feels good and interesting right now. All right. Have you fallen in love with one of your topics, then let's continue. 7. Settle on a Topic: Soul Topics: As a plus, you are absolutely encouraged to use this map of meaning as a basis for any other personally meaningful artistic project, like illustration, painting, three D art, sculpture, lyrical, poetic exploration, music, any kind. And this map of meaning, it's really worth exploring from time to time and also really dig deep, right? Because this is all it's super nice, right? But at least from my perspective, there are some nice things in here. But it can go deeper. It can become philosophical. It can become very personal, and you might find out that you care about things and that certain things hold meaning and value for you that you wouldn't really have expected so much before. And that might be a basis for your next project. So if you feel drawn to this kind of verbal approach to topics that you like, well, go for it. 8. Get Loose: Drawing Warm Up : Getting warmed up is helpful with loosening up and becoming more comfortable with our materials and media. I would rather call it meeting ourselves and the material today. This can help you to get to a place of greater ease and improve all subsequent sketching. Now, let's warm up our drawing fingers. We will get going with some easy PZ strokes and dabbles just because it is always more comfortable and easier to dive into sketching and drawing when we start with loosening up. I have some copy paper ready here. It's just regular paper you can use for your printer. Nothing fancy at all, because I don't want to fill the precious pages of my sketchbook with these warm up exercises. Although sometimes through them and from them, something interesting can emerge. However, this time, I will just keep it very simple with this, and in case there should be something interesting emerging from these little exercises, well, then I will just put some of these papers into my sketchbook. So let's go. Let's start with some very easy long lines. Try to make them as straight as possible. And the more you draw, the more you can try to bring them closer together. Move your whole arm instead of only the wrist. In this case, you will get a straighter line if you move your whole forearm. Once you have some lines going, let's continue with some circles. Here, we will just take our pencil and we will make a swift, loose circle as if we were poking some holes into cheese. Just like that. Try to move the pencil in one swift stroke. Don't worry if you don't close the circle. Sometimes I hold my breath while doing this. Like, I breathe in, It's like this kind of tension helps you to connect to the whole motion. You can also sometimes prepare the stroke like this and then in the next instance, you put them down. Sometimes the most spontaneous ones are the best. This is a very good concentration and focus exercise as well. For the very small ones, you can only move the fingers, but for the larger ones, you want to have this movement happen a little bit from the wrist as well. And don't worry if you get some pears or apples or plums in between here. It's not about the perfection. It's just about the loosening up. So next, there's a nice little exercise which is like a little oh star shining in the darkness. You start with one center point, and you try to come from there. And with a swift movement, with a flick the fingers and wrists, you draw this little asterisk. And of course, you can reverse this exercise by trying to find the center. And this can be a little bit more tricky. So that they all end in one space in one particular point. And then for the final area on this paper, let's do some wiggly lines. And here again, try to use your whole arm. Mye even starting from the shoulder like the whole arm is moving. But at least your forearm should move, and the movement should be initiated from the forum and try to make them more expressive as you go along. It will feel more loose, more easy, and you will generally feel that your arm is kind of warming up. So these are four exercises which I really like to just get going a little bit. 9. Get Loose: Spirals: One other, which can really complement these exercises is drawing little spirals. Making them bigger or smaller and coming from the outside in or from the inside out. Of course, the aim is to not overlap these lines. But it doesn't really matter. You can also make them very, very, very big. And the bigger your shape is, the more your whole arm should move. Okay. So it's like water drops on the surface of a pond. Like that. And they overlap and they become bigger. That alone would be a really nice meditative drawing experiment. But always keep in mind the smaller the movement, the more focused your movement. The smaller the shape, the more focused your movement should be. Like, if it's just that small, then only the fingers move, then the hand starts to move, and then the whole arm starts to come into the motion. So it's always an interplay of your whole body, basically, because when you draw, also you have a kind of tension, but at the same time, you don't want to be cramped or like, super stiff. You just want some very nice ease and flow kind of posture so that you can get into a good mindse here as well, not only warm up your hands and wrists, but also focus and center your body to your mind. Okay. So that is the second part of a warm up exercise which I really enjoy. And, of course, if there are spontaneously emerging shapes or scribbles or doodles or whatever, just feel free to incorporate them in your warm up. And sometimes like, maybe even with this one, it can become a whole sketch in itself. This reminds me a lot of water. And I love when rain falls down on water, and it becomes like this. So, this has set me into a good mood, and so maybe you find some stuff while warming yourself up without any expectation for results, and you might be surprised what can happen in these exercises. 10. Quick Form Snapshot Intro: Now that we've loosened up our pens, tablets, arms, and wrists, we'll be covering some basic shapes which arise again and again in jewelry and any drawing project really. You could say this next fun step is giving you some basic ingredients so that you'll then be able to cook many different recipes from them. If you're just starting out or need some refreshings, this will be perfect to get you going. If you're already an experienced sketcher, it's probably safe to jump ahead directly into the jewelry sketching part. Since we'll be covering some jewelry specific aspects like faceted or bathtub stones, you might want to stick around for a few or all of these lessons. We keep it super snappy, no overthinking or too many technicalities. Also, you'll see a little indicator on how far in we are into each lesson. So once you hear this little ding, we move on, okay? For the quick form snapshots, I'll be working in digital, but I'll be only using techniques that are synonymous to a pen or a pencil, eraser, and a smudch tool or your finger. Imagine a little lamp sitting here at 10:00. This will be our forever light source throughout all these exercises. Ready? Then let's go. 11. Quick Forms: Sphere: Alright, let's start with a circle. Really light airy circle. Use your shoulder, not your fingers. So whole arm is involved. Like that, maybe. Of course, you can do it slower and go like that, right? That is also possible. So first of all, light comes from here. So let's indicate a little highlight here. There is an area where we won't shade anything. Then we can give it a little just very light strokes. You don't have to follow the curvature here. This should just indicate that this is a little bit darker than the highlight. And then we will create the shadow. Okay? So that is the shadow side, and we can create a little edge here of the shadow, even though usually the shadow bleeds a little bit into the light area. It's not always a very clean cut edge of the shadow. And then we are creating the core shadow, which is usually the darkest part of the shadow. And you see I'm following the sphere here, the shape. Very loose strokes, nothing fancy. And I'm just darkening that side, and I'm following the sphere shape, and I'm just trying to imagine, okay, if there would be light here, where would my shadow start? Would probably be around here. And then we can create the cast shadow, which is the shadow that this sphere casts onto the floor. And because the sphere is round, the shadow will have a little bit of around shape as well, because the light is coming from here, the light will come here and here. On the side of a sphere, so that it is here is a bright area, here is a bright area, but this area directly behind the sphere is dark. And we can just indicate this. This doesn't have to be super, super detailed. If you have a small drawing like jewelry sketches, usually this is enough, okay? So that would be the small version, and you see that is really quick. And one thing that is missing here a little bit is this little area where the light from the surrounding floor and walls and everything is reflected onto the edge of the sphere, and so we can do a little crisp eraser edge here to indicate this little edge. So I invite you to smudge the dark areas a little bit. But you don't have to. Sometimes the crosshatch is absolutely enough and it can look really good just the way it is. Smudging sometimes gives it a little dirty, I don't know, undefined look, but you can smudge and then crosshtg over it and just make sure that the cast shadow is darkest directly below the sphere because there is the lowest amount of light reflected from the rest of the surroundings. And if you want a really quick version, that would be it. Just give this a little dark side of the moon vibe here. Here's the reflected part, and there you go. You have beads you have any kind of spherical object that is not translucent. Or of course, this could be a pearl, even though that is more a reflective material like gold or silver. You see it as a very strong coarse shadow. It has a very strong reflection, and pearls are usually not as reflective, have a softer highlight and a softer shadow. Often for pearls, something like this is already enough. And sometimes pearls are really glossy, then they have a little highlight. Very soft shading here for pearl. So a lot of smudging is always good for a little bit more of a rougher material like mother of pearl compared to a polished piece of metal. Now, depending on the color of the pearl, we can increase the depth of the dark areas on the surface of the pearl. And we can also give the shape another highlight, depending on where the light is coming from or a bigger highlight using the eraser. One important aspect is that the pearls usually have a lot of reflection on the outer rim of the shape. So it looks a little bit as if it was lit up from all sides on the edge. Amazing. Then let's move on to the next shape. Just as a side note, I also created the sphere with a lot more smudging, which you might also want to try. So there's different ways of arising at a nicely shaded sphere. Here I also opted for first shading the bright area of the sphere a little bit, and then erasing where the highlight should sit. So instead of leaving this little dot free from the beginning, I opted to erase it afterwards. This can give you a really crisp edge. 12. Quick Forms: Cylinder: Next, we're going to draw a cylinder. Remember, our light source is coming from here. So with two quick flicks of your forearm or the whole arm or the wrist really depends on how big you're making this. Let's draw a flat oval. And then Whoops. Another half, and then you connect them with two lines and then you have a cylinder, the cylinder will be lit up on this side, right here on that side, you can follow the rounding of the cylinder. Imagine a can of paint or something and you can indicate the darkest part of the shadow directly in the center of that. Also you have the darker area directly behind and below the cylinder. You can indicate a shadow and the shadow, of course, always has the shape of the original form. So here these straight lines would be copied over to the shadow. And then here would be a little highlight, and we could indicate some mid range color like that. And this part here is a little interesting, depending on what material that is. Let's say we have a flat surface here, then it would probably be like this. So this edge would be darker than that. Don't ask me why, but it gives a good result for a quick jewelry sketch that is really all that's needed. So here, I could have left the crosshatch because it was sufficient. But you can if you like, you can smudge, and if not, you can just leave it like that. And then imagine if we wanted an opening inside here. We could do the same, but we could just create another let's say that was an open cylinder, and then we could just shape the top a little bit, to indicate that it's flat. I know here I made flat lines as well. Sometimes you can get away with this, but it's usually good to make the shading follow the shape. And then because the light is coming from here, that part will be darkest, right? So that could be a ring shank actually seen lying on the side and would just work the same way. And in the same way, we would have a shadow cast onto the floor. 13. Quick Forms: Diamond: No, let's go for the diamond. If you are drawing a diamond from the top, usually you're not doing it that bag it will be more like a very small little circle. Just for presentation purposes, I will do it like this. Then you can draw two squares in here, try to make them relatively straight. And then you can make some facets come from the corners. These two squares create. And then in here, you can make a little star, just like we did in the warm up. This will indicate the facets which are below the diamond, you know, like that. To indicate sparkling, we can alternately shade the facets directly next to each other dark and leave some of them light. You can also use some dark strokes on the side from where the light source is coming from to have a little bit of a similar effect as we had with the bathtub stones. Here, there should be one facet that is absolutely highlighted like this one. And we can even try just partially drawing some dark spots into them. And that already gives, if you are looking at it from afar, a sense of, Okay, this is sparkling. Can you see that? And I intentionally give some darkness around the brightest facet so that there is a contrast. You see that? And that contrast helps to reinforce the sense that there's something sparkling. Now, if you're doing that with a very small shape, like you would do on a piece of paper with jewelry, you're just going for that and this little X in here. So if you're going for a smaller brush, that's more like a pencil, then it is not so blurred. And I'm intentionally leaving that very small here, and then you have your facets on here. And if you now start randomly or at least make them alternate between dark and bright. And you also give a contrasting effect to those, you can see, right, that could actually be a sparkling gem. Okay? So that's the little trick that you can employ. It doesn't have to be perfect and it doesn't have to be realistic. It just has to be some kind of alternating values going on, darker and brighter facets. And this will already give you the impressions if you had some faceted gem here. Well, that already could be a drawing of a stone. And here is another example of a gem, which is relatively small in my image. 14. Quick Forms: Bufftop: Translucent bathtop gems. I will just show you how to make bathtop gems, which would be translucent. So we had our circle, and that would be something solid. You can't see through it. If you go for a sphere or an oval that is translucent, it would work a little bit differently. So you would still have you little light reflection spot here, your highlight. But then, let me just make my brush again a little bigger. And you can do that by holding your pencil flat, and then you will make a bigger stroke. So now what you would do is you would kind of start the other way around. You would start with a very dark spot behind the highlight, okay? So that there is a very strong contrast between the highlight and the rest of the stone and the rest of this shape. And then you would kind of start to slowly fade that out. So that the darkest part is actually the one that is closest to the light source. And then you can very softly fill in the rest and try to keep one bright outline. That is where that is called the finel effect. We won't go in here right now, but that is where the light is kind of bouncing back towards the viewer. So we have a little corona around the jam. And then we can kind of smudge that a little bit. And here, there will be a reflection of the dark part that's very interesting. So there's a dark part here, and then the light goes through and fills the jam. And then in the end, you have another part where kind of this whole color is reflected once more or where this whole color is seen once more. And, of course, you can always use your eraser to give it a bit of depth. I should have a clear outline like that. And then that is shining through here and lighting up the back of the gem. Similar here when you're drawing a sphere. That's also a way to draw water droplets, by the way, just that they usually have less color than a gem. But that is very similar. Just make sure that the light that goes through here is kind of bouncing back here in the back of the gem, and then you get a see through gem rather than a solid sphere. I like that. And then one more interesting trick, the shadow this thing casts is more like that because there is light coming through the translucent object and only on the edge becomes a little bit more defined a little bit darker. And you can see that when you have a balloon and light shines through it and you kind of see a translucent shadow, it is a very similar effect. So that would be a more appropriate shadow for something translucent. Maybe you can already see how this is see through here, shining through. This one is a little bit too dark, actually, but you can always smudge or erase a little bit to give it a little bit more definition or shine. Yeah, I feel also the shadow makes a big difference, this one here. All right. 15. Quick Forms: Jump Ring: Alright, let's go for jump rings. Jump rings are interesting. They are basically usually like that. Yeah, the inner circle is absolute garbage. But luckily, we can always erase the lines that we don't need. So now you have kind of a Taurus, and that taurus has a side that the light comes from here. That taurus has a darker and a brighter side. So just as with the cylinder and with the sphere, there's a shadow on the far side that is kind of getting darker the further away this whole thing is. And I'm following the shape of this thing to indicate the curvature. With my strokes and feel free to smudge it. But it's not always necessary. Sometimes it looks even better if it's not smudged. All right. So now we have a jump ring, and what you could do is you could indicate an opening here just indicating that here is basically a cut in the jump ring because that's a little away from the light, it would look like this. And now you have a ring shank and you have um, hoop earrings or cable bracelets, if you want to make a little chain link thing, you know, sometimes that's enough to just indicate that. But if you want to give it a little bit more definition, there you go, right? Or you could also say, Okay, I want that one more, but I want it with another profile. So instead of that, we would maybe have that profile. Okay? And then we would just create a clean edge where this has also a clean definition. It there's another cut, and that's basically like a cylinder that has a hole, like the one that I drew before. But now it is open on both ends and it also forms a ring shank. Now, that might be a little bit more complex, but in the end, it's the same principle. Yeah, you give it light areas where the light falls on and you shade it where there is no light coming onto the thing. And the things that are directly pointing towards us like in this case, this little edge is often good to leave it relatively bright so that we can see that this is the area that is closest to us. And 16. Sketching Jewelry: Draw What Draws You!: Finally, let's reap the fruits of all this preparatory work and dive deep into our sole topic and sketch. Let's bring all of this preparation together. Let's get into sketching. We want to try to connect our sole topics with jewelry design. I like to start with simple shapes which can express the essence of my dream topics as variable objects. So I'm searching for symbols, simplifications, abstractions. As I've chosen my vacation in Greece, I ate ice cream, and so maybe there could be a golden ice cream cone and three pearls as ice cream in gold, you could put a little pattern that looks like a waffle on the surface, actually. And then these pearls could be fastened to it. And then this could make a little pennant or maybe an earring, right? Like, here's the ear lobe. Here's this inner part of the ear. Here's the earlobe. And through the ear lobe, there would be this little pierci thing, and there would be this little fastener. And then, yep, just like that, we would have an idea. So this would be flat. Just like that, we would have an idea for a piece of jewelry that would make sense in the context of our sole topic. Or if you win snorkeling, actually, we could go for a pendant that is shaped like one of those fins, right? Like those swimming fins. And that could be made in silver or copper or any other material, and then it could become a little pendant. And you see, I'm not really doing much of shading here, right? That is just simple shapes. They are not intricate or anything. It's just like, Okay, I have an idea, and how can I indicate this idea with a few strokes, a few cross hatchets to indicate some shaded area, you know, to indicate that this might be a recess in those swimming fins. Or if we continue with the idea of snorkeling, we could even think of a fish that could wrap itself around the finger ray. Like a ring. And we could think about how could we go about that? How could we bring that kind of style to life? And I mean, I'm thinking here along those lines that it's gold or silver, right? But maybe you could also think of earrings. Let's say, here's my ear lobe. And here's this little hook that goes through the ear aid. And here I want to have a chubby fish. I just like chubby fish, and I would like to have this out of laser cut wood. So that would be wood, right? A little rough, flat, or even a three D printed fish. You know, maybe a longer one. You could three G print this from sketch to model, actually, if you had a very simple shape like that. So there are so many ways to include your soul topics as symbols in your designs, and you can go from pretty figuratively like this fish to more abstract like this fish. So if you like music, I've chosen the singing. You could, of course, you could use a note and make a little earpin out of it, right? That just sits here on the ear. Or you could go for something more abstract and you could design a ring that resembles a sound wave like that. This wraps around the finger, you know, and it's the sound wave of your favorite song or your loved human has said something like, I love you or you want to marry me, and that is the sound wave representation of that, right? Of course, it couldn't be too sharp on the edges. You always have to when you want to design something wearable, you always have to keep in mind that you don't want to make it too uncomfortable, especially if that's something that they should wear more often and not just for super special occasions. And to go even more abstract, let's say, for the vacation, you want to make a pendant that represents the sun. And that is just one simple golden flat disc, nothing more. And you put a little jump ring at the back, and then you have a pennon. It's very abstract, but it's still very symbolic. Of course, then you could choose to engrave it. Like that. Maybe put a little diamond in the center. Okay? There's so many options on how you could design a piece of jewelry resembling the sun. But the most abstract is always simple geometric shapes. I mean, a fish could basically be a triangle and a square rectangle, another triangle, and yet one more triangle, right? So there are many options to represent things in the world with very simple shapes. And that is so cool with jewelry because it doesn't have to be super detailed. Often jewelry is especially interesting if it is less, like, reduced. You might know the saying that good design is when you can't subtract anymore from it, right? And what would you substract from this? There's just this circle. There's nothing else, so it's hard to subtract anymore from this design. And that's why very simple designs, they often have a very, especially with jewelry, they have a very good impact, but it depends on personal style, and some they really like more playful and whimsical, and some they really like abstract and clear cut shapes. And it all depends on what you like here. You are doing this for you, except you're designing this for a beloved being. But even then it should you should like it as well. I have seen that if I try to draw stuff or to think of stuff purely for other people, only for them to like it like I want to design something that has to be liked by someone else, it just doesn't work. I have to be on board emotionally, and that's why I made this little mind map together with you because these are your topics, and these should be your designs. So, of course, you could also choose to incorporate typography into your designs. Maybe you want to make a pendant that says sun. And then we can think, Okay, what would, I don't know. That's not very sunny. I was thinking of something where some like this. Okay, that looks rather more punk. Like, okay, I would say punk. Yeah, but Okay, that's a better Okay, I want you erase. I will just keep it. Let's say you design such a pennant, you know, like a speech bubble. And it says power. Let's say that is made out of super neon green leather. Like there are some kind of these fake fall leather pieces, and there are some jumpings in there. It looks a little punky, and there is one of those which you can punch through material, and then you put the chain in there like that. And if you make that big, like, here's your neck and this is, like, big, then this is a statement piece, you know? So there are many ways of incorporating typography, as well. And I have a YouTube video where I show you how to design a ring that has a name, or I think I made a ring that said jewelry. Like this. And it wrapped around the finger, you know, as a ring. And it was three D printable. So, of course, something like that or something like that or like that, the pearls, they would have to be extra, but many of these things can be three D printed or made three D printable. Okay. So another thing, try finding a focal aspect in each design. Yeah, don't put too much stuff on their design at first, but use one focal aspect. That's why I focus on single words here in our sole topics because often, it is best if you just as I said, if you focus on one single aspect and you try to tickle out the expression in jewelry. Okay? Of course, you could also incorporate typography as engravings. For example, inside this ring, the thing that was spoken could be written, you know. So, use a focal thing, you know, focus. This could be a shape, and one of your words, this could be a specific object. One specific stone. Of course, there are so many designs that incorporate beautiful beautiful stones, and we could also take a citrine like a citrine stone, and we could put it below a little pennant that you could put on your ear, and you could hang it, you know, with a few jump rings, and then you would have a very yellow, shiny stone that represents the sun, and then you have a little tiny stud for your ears, which also represents the sun. Okay. So these two go together, but they represent they represent one topic, one focal topic, and I like to play on the sun, as you can see on this. I really love to be in Greece. Another aspect that's important here is try keeping your strokes light and loose at first. To easily be able to erase some erroneous strokes and also to find your shape, like the way that I draw circles as I first very lightly indicate them, and then I continue to kind of set them down, you know? And if one stroke goes ori, you can always go in there and refine the shape with your eraser, as well. You can work additive, like positive. You can add strokes, but you can also erase some and keep the perfect line. But in case you don't like the design, just as I did with this punky sun here, which might have been cool. But rather than erasing it, now I'm following my own advice. Rather draw a new design next to the one, you'd feel the urge to adjust before you adjust too much because you have lots of space here. Yes, we can draw lots, lots of stuff. We don't need to be cringy skimpy with our paper, right? Because this is for exploring. So stick with the first thing that comes to mind and draw it and then jump to the next free spot on your paper and draw the next thing that is connected to your soul topic. Don't stress about finishing every design. Don't stress about making it perfect. It's about the process of bringing ideas freely out and on paper, and we absolutely want to mirror the aimless, spontaneous nature of creation that we first hinted on with finding our soul topic. This was also free association. Once you settled in a bit and you notice some things especially like maybe you honed in on the sun topic and you kind of design more, and maybe you combine it with music and so on. Then you might choose one or a few designs you especially like and where you really feel a connection to, as with the soul topics, you will find your soul pieces on here. And sketch them once again, or refine the strokes directly. Like really go in there, try to bring out the details, try to bring out light and shadow. Also you can draw them in a bigger scale, to be able to bring out more details in that way. Make sure to regularly reference your references, both your soul topics, and also any kind of reference that you found beforehand that was inspiring to you. It will make for an even more fun process and you will get inspired again and again. It will be a kind of self reinforcing loop, be sure to use everything that gets your gears turning here and your juices flowing and Alright. 17. Coloring:Pearls: If you now ask yourself, what can I do with all these sparkling ideas that I just brought out into the world? Here's some suggestions for you. Now that we have some interesting ideas brought or piece of paper, and you feel like you have maybe exhausted this supply of creativity for now because the ideas become less and it starts to slow down a little bit, then it can be very worthwhile to stop for now and revisit this at a later time. Times we like to refine some of those ideas which we brought to paper because we feel they are especially good or creative or interesting. And for this, there are a few options, of course. I have been diving into my little ice cream cone here, which for some reason, made me quite happy, and I wanted to explore that idea further, this one. So I drew that a few times. On a new piece of paper, and I even made a variation. And I did this so that I can build on this design so that I can explore this one particular idea in more depth. And maybe some new ideas will spring forth from it. And I'm aiming at varying the materials that I use for these different versions. So I still have a flat piece of gold below fastened to these pearls. And I indicated this with a basic colored pencil. I have created a little sheet for me here where I just drew some swatches and marked which number makes the particular color so that I know which one I want to use. And of course, you are free to use watercolor or acrylics or any other kind crayons, felt tip pens. And this gold here, I indicated the main lines with the pencil, and then I put some yellow in here, and then I use some brown to indicate the darker areas in this pattern in this waffle pattern. And then I also used a white ink pen in case you want to put a little glimmer spot on top of some dark area like this. This can really be very helpful with all kinds of jewelry drawings. And then we have the pearls. These are pearls, so I should probably darken the areas here in between because this would also still be metal. Pearls, they come in all kinds of varieties. There are so many types of pearls. You can see I have one, which is quite black. But many pearls come in a kind of grayish white pastel tone. So it's never wrong to go very soft on the different hues and just indicate that there is a kind of changing color going on. This is this kind of iridescent mother of pearl effect, which is so typical for pearls. I just indicate a little bit of different colors here, and in the center I leave a little bright spot to indicate that the light goes onto there, and the edges, I might get myself a little bluish gray and indicate that they're a little less light is falling. And it's always helpful to keep the edges towards the edge a little lighter because pearls always reflect the surrounding light in a very particular way. So that could indicate pearls. 18. Coloring: Colored Gems: Then the second one I thought about could be to use gemstones instead of pearls. So I would actually make a little setting, a little basil around the stone to hold the stone, a small edge. And then inside, I would do this little trick on drawing kind of these faceted looking pieces. And you see it is already enough that I indicate the facets here, draw this little triangle coming from the side and the center to somehow make clear that these could be faceted stones, right? And then I need to decide on a color, and there are lots and lots of ice cream variants, right? So I think one of them would be green. It just makes some green. It could be a peridot like that. And I think another could be pink. So it's like a watermelon or something. Like strawberry ice cream or anything like that. And you see, I just hint at the color coming from one side. You know, leave room for the reflections. In one side, it is brighter and there's more light, and that's enough for me. If this is going to be gold as well, and what would fit well here? So we have green, we have red. Do we want some blue here? Classic, or do we want some orange? Do we want some orange? Let's first continue with the gold. So these are just ideas, so I don't really stress about the colors or anything like that. If you really want to design that for realization in the end, if you want this to become a real piece of jewelry, then you probably want to check out a few different materials. You want to check out some different stones to just understand what are your options here, and this probably will give you even more insight on how your piece could look. Here, the white ink pen is really coming in handy just in some areas. And you can also use that white ink pen to highlight stones, of course. Yeah, this can be very helpful for that. So I just indicate the shadow below the bezels here. So here as well, the gold here. What do we want blue? I think I want blue. Blue for the sea and everything. Yeah. Yeah, I think that See, and that's why I put the gold in here first so that I could see, okay, I don't need more orange here. I can just put a blue stone. That would be something like an aquamarine or probably a topaz. This is very topaz like color. So that would be an approach to vary a first design idea and make it a little bit more concrete and come to life through color. And of course, this is a perfect, perfect starting point if you at any point in time want to do a three D design. Okay? So that is really good material to have as a reference for three D design. 19. Coloring: Colorless Gems: Now, for the next version, I just did the same colouring again, only that I now left the gems colorless. Because diamonds have a lot of dispersion and refraction and dispersion being the ability to break light apart into the individual wavelength, just like a prism or a rainbow. And diamonds have a lot of that ability. And so I like to give the diamonds because when you look at diamonds, they have fire. They have different colors sparkling. I would just give them a few specks of color here in between the facets. If you ever have looked at a diamond on video or in real life, you know that they kind of sparkle like that. And that's probably all that I'm going to do and maybe just gray out some facets to make sure that there's some kind of gradient going on. Well, I know that that could be much better, but for me, it works. That's probably already too much color. But it works to know that this is supposed to be a diamond. Sparkling diamond. You see, I'm not even drawing all those facets that I described to you earlier. I'm just making a mess. Well, now for this beauty here, 20. Corloring: Rainbow IceCream: Do not make yet another golden one. I will go for silver one here just to indulge you and me, as well. I just trying to get a little gradient in here to indicate, okay? There's slight and shadow bouncing off different patterns here like that. And silver has such a strong reflection ability. It is reflecting so strongly that with silver, you can basically never go wrong if you give some really strong as if there was something very dark reflected, you know, cause that's how silver is, if you look at it. It has so many reflective points, and it has really a contrast between the light and dark part. And also, if you're clear how your pattern should look, if it goes in or out, I just drew a waffle pattern here, but I actually I guess the way I drew it, it would be that those lines here would come out and these would be indens, those squares in between. And that's why the light is casting a shadow from here and there's a brighter spot in the lower part. Yeah, and I didn't do a really good job on the silver here. It's all practice, and I'm not doing the coloring part so often because I use so much three D. You know, three D teaches you not to use so much. But I guess with enough stumbling around. You can at least imagine that this looks good, okay? So then the question, what do you do with this upper part? And I was thinking of making this also mother of pearl, but another color. But of course, we could also make this, for example, with glass. We could use enamel, and then we could give this any color. So some evil force inside me wants to make that brown. But I guess a real ice cream cone would have a white cream topping, right? So like that, and I would indicate that this here is kind of a band piece of metal that holds the enamel. Let's not make that brown. I have a better idea. Let's make that rainbow colored. Start with red here. So that is rainbow colored enamel. Whoo. That was a close call, right? So there we're going to put some orange. So I'm just drawing, like, a rainbow colored enamel. So imagine we would put some glass beads, very small glass beads in here, so small that they look more like sand. And then once you put them inside there, yeah, you heat it, and then the glass melts and then it changes into a fluid. And then it stays that way. Once it cooled down, Okay, so like that, we could make the edge silver colored as well. We could also make it gold colored, which would be a cool contrast to the waffle. Shall we make it gold colored? I mean, we could have the option to draw yet another one. And, I mean, it would connect to the other side. And I think without this, even this part here, this upper part would be very interesting to behold, indeed. Let's keep it silver for now because just to keep it in one style with the lower part and also silver is white, of course, so all the colors will look more natural with your yellow gold. Of course, they will always have a kind of hue, special kind of hue, yellow hue. Yeah. So now we have some rainbow colored poop, ice cream cone here, give it some dark spots where there are no highlights. Yeah, that looks so nice that I actually want to give it my little initials here. That would be how I would go about refining an idea that comes to me through this whole process or any other idea. In this way, you might end up with a real nice piece of work. 21. Further Thoughts on Collection: If this process has caught fire with you, you could also start thinking of creating a collection. The process is the same as with the previous brain and soul storming, we did with all these exercises here with our little map of meaning. Just that you focus even more on one particular theme throughout multiple pieces and try to connect them in a coherent way. Basically, that was already what we were doing here. So this could be the starting point for a collection. And if I now decided I would also want to have a pendant that has an ice cream cone and I want a really big pearl that indicates just the ice cream. I would put that all together, then I would already have a collection going or at least the idea of a collection. Okay? So this could be further next steps that would probably be very fun to think about and to actually. 22. Further Thoughts: AI Support: Another thing that you could do is ask any kind of AI image generator for help. If you have an idea, but you feel it's missing a certain kind of flavor, a certain kind of, I don't know. It's called DascaVaEtra in German, like a certain something. Use an AI, give it the description of what you envision, but maybe are not quite able to articulate visually and then see what comes out. And then don't copy it straightaway, but think about how what came out could be incorporated in your idea. 23. Further Thoughts: Handcraft and 3D: How could these designs be brought into the real world in any material? Maybe you ask a goldsmith who could work on such a piece for you. That would be an amazing experience to design your own piece and then have it built for you. That alone would be amazing. And the goldsmith would be very intrigued, probably, if you give him or her such a specific idea and challenge him or her to make it a reality. This is the perfect base, as I said, to incorporate into a three D project. So any of these designs, I could now challenge myself to build and blender. And maybe you already know that I have lots and lots of classes available to help you with doing exactly that. So feel free to dive into other classes of mine if you want to bring this into three D and maybe even make something three D printable out of it. 24. Final Thoughts: I hope you had lots and lots of fun with these promptings and exercises and sketching and everything. You see, this has become quite messy with all the different ways we approach this, but I feel coming from just words or maybe symbols that you feel drawn to, then playing with us to create something that is uniquely personally yours and meaningful to you and put that into a kind of symbol, cast that into an actual object that you could hold that you could wear, that you could gift to someone. This is such a meaningful process, you know? And jewelry, if you actually make a piece of jewelry out of metal, it can survive for thousands of years, right? That's one of the very intriguing things about jewelry, because if you use precious metal, this can become kind of a time capsule for our specific point in time. I don't know if you ever looked at it this way, but in a way, you are starting a process here that is a way of immortalizing something that is uniquely, personally valuable and important to your soul. And that alone is such an amazing idea, at least to me. I'm not always thinking about when I do jewelry, but I certainly think about the impact that such a design realized could have on future generations and even something as playful and mundane as an ice cream cone, you can see that there can be lots and lots of variations of this topic. And I think especially this one symbolizes some kind of our meme Internet culture. I don't know why I feel that way, but it just seems to me so internety. And if that would be a real piece of jewelry, well, it would bring those virtual ideas back into the real world. And in a way, the whole process is like that. The things that are floating in your mind to bring them out, to draw them out of the treasure island of your soul and to make them into something more tangible. So I hope you enjoyed that journey together with me. 25. Thank you & Outtake: Hello there. I hope you enjoyed this class as much or even more as I enjoyed creating it. Should I make a follow up on this? If yes, what kind? Please share your soul topics and beautiful sketches in the project gallery. Write your thoughts and feelings about them. I'm excited to take a peek and immerse myself in your world, just as you have just honored me to take part in mine. If you like to, please leave me a review. This is a perfect way to share your experience and at the same time, help me greatly as a teacher. You can share what you think about the class in a constructive way and help me make better classes in the future. It will also help spread the word of the class. So if you liked it or disliked something, why not share it with me? Of course, take me on Instagram when posting your work. I'll be sure to repost it if I see it quickly enough. Also, you're welcome to check out my other classes or my free content on YouTube. And finally, book a one on one with me if you want to really dive into sketching and drawing, as well as three D and jewelry design. For now, let me wish you a wonderful day. Thanks for taking the class, and most importantly, keep igniting that spark inside. See you around. Bye bye. This was also freely association, free associative. My my goodness. This was a free associate exercise or just something cool, yeah, yeah.