It’s Hip to Be Square

A guide to sketching square-shaped gemstones

By Rémy Rotenier

When a customer tells you they want a square-shaped stone, how do you know the specific gemstone cut they’re referencing? There are a number of cuts that a customer could possibly be describing. Princess? Emerald? Radiant? You could try describing the patterns and effects of different stone cuts, but I’ve found that to be a quasi-impossible task.

Luckily, when I was a young (and shy) designer, I realized that drawing could save me a lot of time, effort, and words as my sketches made for wonderful vi-sual aids. Freehand jewelry design is a great communication tool, so when someone says they like “squarish, maybe rectangular” stones, you can quickly show them the difference and identify what they mean.

Here, I will demonstrate how easy it is to quickly sketch emerald, radiant, and princess cut stones for comparison. You’ll notice some similarities in the methods used to draw each cut, so to make sure the differences between the cuts are clear, always draw with the light for each sketch coming from the left at 45 degrees and hitting each of the stones at about the same place. To try this yourself, you’ll need 0.3 and 0.5 mm HB mechanical pencils, an eraser, a couple of rolled paper stumps for blending, some copy paper, and a see-through plastic inch/ metric ruler.