Eleanor Clifford will guide you through every step of illustrating jewellery designs with gouache and watercolours in this one day intensive hand rendering workshop. You will learn about the brushes, paints and other the essential tools needed, gain skills and learn illustrative techniques to create accurate and beautiful drawings to communicate your designs to your clients.

See "What shall I bring?" below for details of paints and brushes to bring to the workshop. We will provide a list of supplier options when you book. 

Special discount to FORGE Friends, enter your code at checkout.

What will I Learn?

You will be producing a variety of step-by-step paintings in order to learn the techniques needed for jewellery rendering, exploring traditional gouache and watercolour painting techniques. This intensive day will cover a huge amount of topics, including learning to render:

- Opaque and translucent cabochons

- Faceted stones

- Small melee stones

- Precious metals

The final project will bring all these skills together to produce a finished jewellery rendering from a selection of designs. This will give you all of the necessary tools to render your own creations using this technique.

What will happen on the day?

This will be an intensive day of learning, designed to guide you through every step of illustrating jewellery designs with gouache and watercolours. We’ll start by familiarising you with the art materials used in the course, ensuring you feel confident with the brushes and paints—no prior painting experience is required, as we'll cover all the basics.

In the morning, we’ll focus on key projects that teach the techniques for rendering gemstones. We will then move on to rendering precious metals. You will then use all of these skills combined in a final exercise, where you'll select and render your complete jewellery design.

What skills do I need?

All levels

What should I bring?

Paint Palette

Gouache Paints:

Winsor & Newton Designer Gouache, 14ml tubes in the following shades:

- Permanent White

- Permanent Yellow Deep

- Burnt Sienna

- Jet Black

Watercolour Brushes:

A selection of brushes in "pointed round," "round," and/or "mop" shapes, with sizes ranging from:

- Smallest hair length: 0.5mm

- Longest hair length: 1.5cm

What should I wear? 

Clothes: Casual and not too precious as they may get a bit dusty or damaged.  Avoid long, loose fitting sleeves and anything that might catch or get caught whilst you are working.

Shoes: Casual flat shoes and no open toed sandals.

Hair: Tie long hair back.

Who is my instructor?

Eleanor Clifford is a goldsmith and jewellery artist from Dorset with 11 years of experience in the trade. She studied Jewellery and Silversmithing at the Birmingham Jewellery School and has and has since been simultaneously working on the bench, as a jewellery designer and tutor. 

How do I get there? 

See contact page for details on public transport and parking.