There are myriad words to describe how light enters and reflects in diamonds and gemstones. They glisten and sparkle, twinkle and dazzle. Often they are luminescent, sometimes brilliant and certainly eye-catching.
But conveying those sentiments artistically, as in a drawing or painting, requires an entirely different kind of articulation. And as times have changed, so have the techniques used to capture jewelry, as well as the reasons for depicting it.
“There is a code to always respect so that the eye can read the volume and the jewelers can understand the design,” Estelle Lagarde, 29, a gouache painter and jewelry designer in the Haute-Savoie region of eastern France, wrote in an email. “The light always comes from the top, at 45 degrees to the left. Thanks to this code, we know where to place the shadows and light.”
Ms. Lagarde’s use of that code, which guides artisans turning designers’ ideas into reality, can be seen in her meticulously detailed images of jewelry and watches. She begins each project the same way: making a contour drawing using a software program, “in order to have the exact dimensions of the technical drawing and the contours of the piece.” She then prints the sketch on a sheet of gray paper and fills its curves and spaces using paint pigments and a long, thin hair brush, called a rigger brush, that allows her to paint fine lines and intricate details.
She has created artworks for watch brands such as Vacheron Constantin, MB&F and Purnell and for jewelry companies including Messika and her own Lagarde Jewelry. And she always sells her jewelry with its matching painting, and also accepts painting commissions. Currently, a ring called Pop Candy (21,000 euros, or $22,630) is her entry level piece.
“Luxury is not found in the cold pixels of our phone or computer,” Ms. Lagarde wrote. “It is found in the emotion that the work of the human hand is capable of achieving.”
While her gouache work is to precise scale, the Brazilian-born painter Fernando Chamarelli’s sweeping, acrylic paintings, digital illustrations and murals are inspired by the idea of parallel universes, string theory and ancient cultures.
“My art style is visionary art,” he wrote in an email. “My work is about connections so I always want to mix elements from different cultures. Usually I put jewelry that these people wore on my characters, especially jewelry from ancient peoples of South America, Egyptians, South Africans and Chinese.
“The jewelry is to make each character unique and highlight their personality. Sometimes I place sacred geometry symbols like jewelry, pendants or necklaces with powerful symbols. It is a mystical knowledge that ancient people had.”
An X-Men comic book that a friend gave him at age 14 led Mr. Chamarelli to draw that very day — and every day for five years. “Then I slowed down,” the self-taught artist said. “Even so, I still drew a lot until I entered college,” the Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, a state university in São Paulo, Brazil.
Since his graduation, Mr. Chamarelli, 32, has collaborated with the likes of Stella Artois and Microsoft and received mural commissions from the Ultra Music Festival in both Miami and Seoul as well as Nike.
While wildly different in style and execution, Ms. Lagarde and Mr. Chamarelli join the likes of Alex Katz, Shahzia Sikander and Ashley Longshore, whose inclusion of jewelry in their respective works has created what Ms. Longshore called “beautiful connections between something Earth has made, me and my art.”
“Plus, in what world do jewels not make someone happy?” asked Ms. Longshore, 48, a self-taught artist who divides her time between a new studio in New York’s SoHo neighborhood and her farm in Folsom, La.
A Montgomery, Ala., native, Ms. Longshore moved to Montana, where she taught herself to paint, then to New Orleans, where she attempted to sell her early work. She always bypassed galleries, choosing Instagram as a sales channel for her bright Pop Art-style canvases (One has the words “Little Miss Muffet became Warren Buffett and stacked up her own money honey” lettered in blue capitals across a magenta pear-cut gem on a red background).
“I’m about bigger and more in everything I do and I feel the same way about jewelry; painting it, wearing it, collecting it, even staring at it,” she said during a video interview, her curly black hair and neck mess of chains filling the screen. Occasionally, Ms. Longshore looks no farther than her own hands and wrists for inspiration. On nearly every finger she wears large rings and a collection of bracelets and bangles adorn both wrists.
Although she began as a painter and still is known for her “Audreys,” side-angled portraits of Audrey Hepburn with a variety of brooches, jewelry and backgrounds, Ms. Longshore now creates accessories, like her acrylic Limited Edition Candy Jewel dishes, and sculptures, including a mixed media Chanel Necklace Sculpture.
“It is impossible to ignore the jewelry market in what I do. I am a light wrangler. I decide how gemstones catch the light” and translate that to her painting, Ms. Longshore said, immediately adding, “When one gemstone shoots hot pink, and another radiates blue, how do I get it to holler ‘look at me?’” Her answer is a combination of technique — hard, angular shadows; repetition; and finding light sources — and feeling.
Ms. Longshore identifies both herself and her artwork as maximalist, glamorous and happy. “Facets are fascinating,” Ms. Longshore said. “To paint a giant gemstone, it’s equal parts reflection and perspective. That’s the shooting hot pink part.”
