Welcome back to Jewelry Design Basics...

In the Design Tools portion of the Series, we began exploring the tools and supplies used by professional designers. 

We are developing an understanding of the terminology and characteristics of the basic design process, so we can make informed decisions as we get started in professional jewelry design. 

So far, we have discussed Drawing Surfaces and Jewelry Templates. In the Drawing Surfaces post, I talked briefly about how paper size is defined and how paper size relates to the various types of drawing and drafting boards on the market. 

Today, we begin to explore Design Media. For purposes of this series, I am including paper as an artistic medium.  I want to dig a little deeper into the different types of paper and other characteristics of paper that will help me choose the best options available for jewelry design.

Paper will serve as the foundation for our designs and drawings. Knowing how paper is made, weighted and finished, will give us the working knowledge needed to make informed decisions and purchases.  

How Paper is Made

Papers are made by turning fibrous materials, usually timber wood or cotton, into mold able pulp.  The pulp is then, molded together and often pressed, and finally, dried to produce the paper. 

  • Lower quality papers are typically made from wood pulp.  Wood pulp is highly acidic and will degrade over time. 
  • Higher quality papers, commonly referred to as Rag Papers, are made entirely from cotton and/or linen fibers making them more resistant to chemical break-down over time. 

Many papers fall somewhere in-between and are made with a mixture of wood and “rag” fibers.

Often, chemicals are added to the papers to slow or prevent pH changes over time. Many mid-priced papers fall into this category.

The molding, pressing, and drying process all affect the finished surface.”

Paper Finish

Unfinished, or rough, paper is not smoothed so that it retains its texture.  Rough paper has a strong tooth and can grab smooth marking materials such as charcoal and pastel.

Cold Press paper is smoothed slightly by a cold finish.  Cold Press paper is less textured and has a slightly weaker tooth than rough paper.  It is truly ‘Goldilocks’’ paper –its tooth and texture sit ‘just right’ with most artists.

Hot Press paper is smoothed completely in a process similar to clothes ironing.  Hot press paper allows for the most detail of the three finishes, and is good for a polished sketch or drafting.  This is the best paper for etching or printmaking.

Paper Weight

“There are three different scales that can be used to describe paper weight (also called paper density).

The first is the U.S. system of Basis Weight, which is the weight in pounds of 500 sheets of paper in its basic sheet size.

The second system of measurement is Caliper, which refers to the thickness of a single sheet of paper as expressed in increments of a thousandth of an inch. Generally speaking, the higher the Caliper, the greater the thickness of the paper and the heavier the paper will be. 

The third system of measurement is known as the metric system, and it is used to describe mass per unit of area. It is measured in grams per square meter, or GSM. Therefore, the weight in grams of a given sheet of paper is equivalent to the weight in grams of a one-square-meter-sized piece of that type of paper.

If you go back to what we have already learned about paper size, in Drawing Surfaces, you will see the GSM system for paper weight, works with the same base measurement as the A0 system for paper sizing. 

Common GSM Weights and Their Uses

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  • 25 lb (approx 40 gsm):  tracing paper
  • 30-35 lb (approx 45-50 gsm):  newsprint
  • 50-60 lb (approx 75-90 gsm):  sketching or practice paper — thick enough to work on with pencils, charcoal, or pastels, but usually too thin for ink or most markers, which may bleed through.
  • 70-80 lb (approx 100-130 gsm): drawing paper suitable for finished artwork in most media.  Paper any lighter than 70 lb will usually be thin enough to see through to drawings or materials underneath.
  • 90-110 lb (approx 180-260 gsm):  heavy-weight drawing paper, Bristol, multi-media papers.  Weight in this range is similar to card stock or light poster board.

Heavier papers, up to 140 lb (approx 300 gsm) or more, are most often used for painting rather than drawing.  When found in sketchbooks, they are usually rougher papers intended as watercolor journals or to remove for painting on individual sheets.

Choosing the right paper for the job......

We have learned so much more about paper and the qualities today.

Now we have guidelines for determining the size, weight, finish and makeup of paper, we can use to make informed purchases.

Here are the choices I made to get started drawing jewelry professionally. 

When you’re sketching out designs, you’ll likely need to make lots of erasures. Look for papers that have just the right amount of tooth and thickness to handle rough eraser treatment.

  • Acid Free, Neutral pH, Natural White Sheets
  • Standard Weight and Versatile Smooth Paper made to Accept all Mixed Media
  • Ideal for Writing, Drawing & Sketching. Use with Pens, Markers, Pencils and more

Most cellulose fiber papers are prone to fading because of their acidity.  To avoid losing your vault of sketching ideas down the road, be sure to buy paper or pads that are acid-free.

Paper weights that work well with Jewelry Sketching:

  • 50-60 lb (approx 75-90 gsm):  sketching or practice paper — thick enough to work on with pencils, charcoal, or pastels, but usually too thin for ink or most markers, which may bleed through.
  • 70-80 lb (approx 100-130 gsm): drawing paper suitable for finished artwork in most media.  Paper any lighter than 70 lb. will usually be thin enough to see through to drawings or materials underneath.

Tracing – the artist can’t live without it.  To transfer your art successfully from rough pad to a smooth hot press sheet, those thin, transparent sheets can be your saving grace.

Most tracing paper is made from cotton fiber.  For the best visibility and detail, buy a tracing paper with a low GSM between 25 and 200.  The thinner the paper, the more detail will come through your transfer.

You’ll want to transfer those finished pieces onto a smooth, hot-press sheet of Bristol paper

Bristol is a multi-ply cotton fiber that represents a standard of excellence in quality in drawing paper.  It comes in one-ply, two-ply and three-ply thicknesses, and can be used for many purposes.

 

Isometric drawing is a pictorial representation of an object in which all three dimensions are drawn at full scale rather than foreshortening them to the true projection. 
 
An isometric drawing looks like an isometric projection but all its lines parallel to the three major axes are measurable.
 
Isometric graph paper or 3D graph paper is a triangular graph paper which uses a series of three guidelines forming a 60° grid of small triangles.
 
The triangles are arranged in groups of six to make hexagons. The name suggests the use for isometric views or pseudo-three-dimensional views.
 

Up Next

Now that we have covered Surfaces, Templates and Paper, it is time to take a look at the various media, used by the pros, to design jewelry.

I hope you are finding this series helpful and that you will stick around this year as we expand our jewelry design skills to a professional level. 

Thank you for stopping by....

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