Designer debuts instructional DVDs on custom design

New York--Rémy Rotenier has released two courses on DVD, Counter Sketching Jewelry and Color Rendering of Jewelry, incorporating the custom-design skills he has learned in his 30 years at the bench.

In the Counter Sketching Jewelry course, Rotenier teaches pencil and paper sketching to allow for the quick capture of ideas and bringing a design to life in front of a customer. 

He talks about which material jewelers will need to sketch, as well as how to draw gemstones and jewelry in 3-D, how light hits opaque, metallic, and transparent objects differently as they’re drawn, and concepts like perspective, values, shades of color and shadows.

Rotenier said the even though today’s technology allows for the digital design of custom jewelry, a jeweler’s ability to hand-sketch not only will impress the client but also offer the opportunity to capture the individual design they want and sketch in real time, gaining their trust as a jewelry artist.

The second class, Color Rendering of Jewelry, teaches the classic European skill of color hand- rendering. It takes viewers through basic techniques and on to the higher level of rendering metals and gemstones into quality “gouache” presentation paintings.

Gouache paints are heavier and more opaque than regular watercolors, and allow jewelers to present clients with a unique gift and experience, linking them “with jewelry’s long history and commemorates their own personal journey in buying a bespoke object,” Rotenier said.

The DVDs were produced in partnership with Blaine Lewis, the founder of the New Approach School for Jewelers in Franklin, Tenn. They used the same advanced, high-magnification video and multiple camera angles that Lewis uses to teach jewelry-making classes.

Each DVD is more than three hours long. They can be purchased for $175 each through the Rio Grande catalog here and here.

Rotenier, who is the brother of the late designer Robin Rotenier, has been working for international jewelry houses in both Paris and the United States for 30 years, and currently creates collections that vary widely in price.

He also teaches at various design and jewelry schools across the United States, trains designers and sales associates at jewelry companies and retail stores, and tutors and mentors private students.