Gem Rendering Workshop

My mum (knowing I was going to be doing some rendering) cut out this advert from a magazine.
It's from Beards in Cheltenham, who specialise in bespoke jewellery, and their website (www.beards.co.uk) has some more nice examples.

Former HND student Layla (from Layla Kristina Jewellery) came in for a day to show us how to use gouache on a mid-tone card, to render realistic gemstones of different types and cuts.

I'm really pleased with my experiments but definitely need more practice.

At home, I had another go using different media (pens & pencils because I thought they'd be more portable than paint).
However none of the results were as good as the gouache.

As my own work tends to be more metal than stones, I now need to go away and learn how to render the different metal colours.