Gemmy gems

Learn how to create gorgeous gemmy gems • enioken.com

We are having a secondary challenge at the Shading Zentangle® Facebook group. Inspired by the glorious and astounding work by Kae Yoshino, we are exploring how to include gems into Zentangle tiles. This is not that easy! Although Kae has provided two really cool mini tutorials on how she colors her own "jems" (you can find her tutorial here), I didn't quite get the look I wanted with it, so I used my usual method of drawing gems, which kind of look more like cabochons to me.

Learn how to create great shading with Eni Oken's ebooks • enioken.com
Learn how to create great shading with Eni Oken's ebooks • enioken.com

In my gems version I usually start with a dark shading at the top left (TOWARDS the direction of the light, which is kind of contradictory to traditional shading) using copic markers. Then I create a gradient going from dark to light color using colored pencils. A super crisp highlight is created with white gel pen, and finally a rim shadow with a bit of color, to show the glassy transparency of the stone.

Here are some other recent pictures incorporating gems:

Wow, it seems like I really have a thing for red gemstones! Can you say "I love rubies"?

Here is the lineart for this tile:

Learn how to create great shading with Eni Oken's ebooks • enioken.com
Learn how to create great shading with Eni Oken's ebooks • enioken.com

Tangles used: fat paper, crescent moon, splinters and decorated auras.

This is the final shaded version:

Learn how to create great shading with Eni Oken's ebooks • enioken.com
Learn how to create great shading with Eni Oken's ebooks • enioken.com

This was REALLY FUN and very addictive. I'm going to have to make more!

Copyright 2015 Eni Oken