How to Paint Watercolor Jewels

I know you probably didn’t wake up this morning thinking, “I really wish I knew how to paint watercolor jewels.” But: this is one of those things where once you make one, you can’t stop. It’s hard to believe that something so pretty could come from such a simple technique.

You need a few basic supplies to create these pretty pieces:

I cut a 5″x7″ piece of Strathmore 140 lb. watercolor paper. You can make these without watercolor paper, but they’ll look the best on watercolor paper. That’s because watercolor paper has low absorbency, which means the paint doesn’t really soak into the paper and stays vibrant after it dries.

I’ll show you how to create a whimsical oval gem first. Begin by drawing an oval outline with your pencil.

Next, draw a square in the center, then draw some lines coming from that square. You don’t have to follow my pattern — gems are cut in many different ways and have several faces, so as long as you have a decent amount of geometric shapes, you’ll be good to go!

Here’s what I ended up with:

Now, you’ll want to start painting your jewel. Remember that little sidewalk game from grade school, “Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your momma’s back?” {Or is that just a Kansas thing??} Well, same principle applies here: try not to let your paint touch the pencil lines on the inside of your jewel. You want to make sure no watercolored shape within the jewel touches another shape; instead, a thin white line should separate them.

Just keep painting. This is a great opportunity, by the way, to “zen out” while you’re listening to some music or a Netflix movie.

You should end up with a jewel that looks something like this:

Once your paint is dry, you need to erase your pencil lines. While you’re waiting for the watercolor paint to reach an eraser-safe point, you might as well create another jewel! For this one, I traced around a spool of ribbon to make a circle.

I wanted this to be a more realistic gem, so I looked at some cuts online and found an intricate one that I liked. Feel free to mimic it on your own jewels!

Though I used a dry watercolor palette on my first jewel, I have wet watercolors and wanted to experiment with them. I took these three colors and mixed them together — but not thoroughly. By the way, these Daler Rowneys were, like, $5.00 at Walmart … obviously, they’re not extremely high-quality, but for little projects like these, they are perfect.

The half-mixing ensures that bursts of each color peek through on different faces of the jewel.

Once I was finished painting, I waited about ten minutes, then erased all the guidelines.

The big question here is application: what can you use these jewels for? My favorite way to use them is as a birthday art piece with the aid of loose, lowercase Kaitlin style calligraphy. The informal calligraphy style complements the elegance of the jewel.

I created both of these pieces as size 5″x7″, which is not only an ideal birthday card size, but also a great size for framing. I am intending on sending both out as birthday cards; but I did not write “happy birthday” on the front so the card applies year-round and can be displayed as an art piece, if the birthday boy or girl so wishes. I am using my birthday tracker from The Letter Writer’s Complete Resource to ensure I make one of these cards for everyone who I think may like one!

You can make mini watercolor jewels and use them in the same ways as you would the DIY flower confetti I showed you how to make a couple of months ago.

Here are a few other ideas I have on how to use these:

• Make them into magnets. I’d follow this tutorial, but of course substitute your handmade jewels for paint chips. Be sure and spray some sort of fixative on your jewels before applying paper glaze; otherwise the watercolor will re-activate and get all messy.
• Make a few to use as gift tags throughout the year.
• Paint some directly on envelopes for instant glam snail mail.
• Create a DIY calendar: paint each month’s birthstone at the top/middle of the calendar, and write in the dates at the bottom. It would be great in size 4″x6″ or 5″x7″, and would make for a pretty gift.

I am sure you can think of even cooler ways to use these {and if you do, please let me know!}. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this simple little tutorial, which I really enjoyed writing because — seriously — these jewels are fun to paint!

Warmest wishes and have a great weekend!

PS – Today I used a gray background for photos, which I don’t normally do. Does anyone have an opinion on this vs. a white background? Like it better? Worse? No preference? I thought using a darker background may make the project steps easier to see. I’d love feedback!