1 How Are Gemstone Paintings Made?
The art of making crystal portraits or crushed gemstone paintings has only been
professionally developed since the early 2000.
As simple and beautiful the end product might appear, the making of mosaic gems art is
extremely painstaking and demands years of experience and talented artist skills,
especially for realistic looking people or pet portraits
1. Crystal Mica Canvas Preparation
Crystal Mica Sheet as Gem Painting Canvas
Before anything is done, the final artwork dimension is determined and this
will set foundation for every technical aspect of making a gem stone
painting.
Technical, because unlike oil painting, watercolor or any other traditional
fine art media, the gem artist has to take into consideration the amount of
gemstone crystals he/she will need to make the painting, as well as an
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accurate estimate for each specific color, right from the beginning. Whereas
classic painters will simply need to pour out paints from the tubes or mix
some more from raw pigments as the painting process continues, without
planning ahead.
As you can see in this oil painting vs. crystal art comparison, a mica sheet is
far superior to stretched canvas or wood panels when it comes to durability
and resistance to cracking due to temperature or humidity changes.
2. Gemstone Crystals: Selection, Sorting, Cleaning & Processing
Crushed & Cut Gemstone Crystals Sorted by Colors
From precious gems such as sapphire, emerald and ruby to semiprecious
crystals like garnet, jade, tourmaline, lapis lazuli, color or clear quartz,
peridot, black onyx, agate and many others - all has to be washed, dried
completely and sorted into different light/dark color groups.
This is a time consuming task that requires extensive experience to make
accurate judgments. Preparing too much is a waste of time, while not having
enough just before completion is a really frustrating situation most artists
want to avoid.
Most of the crushing and gems cutting is manually done by hand using
hammers, saws and other jewelry tool kits, because stones have to be
selected manually for best color and texture match, sometimes individually -
one at a time.
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3. Gemstone Painting Sketch & Crystal Arrangement
Artist arranging gems on mica with sketches underneath
The gemstone hand painting starts with the artist making rough line sketches
of the artwork on a piece of white paper, which is securely positioned
underneath the mica canvas.
The gem artist uses the initial sketch as a guide for positioning gem crystals
on the mica sheet.
This can be a priceless family heirloom or a sought after collectible piece
of art for your future generations to inherit.
4. Permanently Setting Gem Stones on Mica
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Mounting Crystals on Mica Using Our Special Adhesive
After gems are perfectly placed, our artists mount them permanently using a
special in-house developed adhesive.
This process is usually repeated several times as the artist continues to add
more layers of gem stones on top of each other, until the desired density is
reached.
Powdered Gems are used for most works of art that require high level of
details or to achieve realism, such as depicting human face in gemstone
portrait paintings. This technique is best used for making artworks that
resemble soft acrylic, pastel or watercolor paintings with very fine texture
and feel.
Crushed Gems are mid size stones split from large clusters of crystals or
grounded from bigger tumble stones. They have unusual and interesting
textures that are impossible to replicate and are used in most gem painting
styles. Best for making interior deco crystal art loo
