Tourmaline

I want to take a bit of time this week to talk about one of my greatest sources of inspiration - precious gems. While I like all gems, Tourmaline and sapphires are top of my list.
In this post I will focus on Tourmalines.
As a designer I am always looking for gems with vibrant colours, that have been expertly cut and faceted. They are like sparkly gumdrops of colour to me and I find them irresistible. When working with a gem, my goal is to design a piece of jewellery that will showcase the stone and take advantage of it's natural beauty.

Tourmaline has one of the largest range of colour of any gem. They can be found in many shades of blue, green, pink, red, orange, yellow, brown. They can be found in many parts of the world with the largest deposits in Brazil, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Madagascar.

Tourmalines are highly wearable as they are tough, meaning they aren't easy to chip, and they have a hardness of 7.5 on the Mohs scale. This helps them resist sratches. Tourmalines beautiful colour, high luster and wearability make it an ideal stone to use in jewellery. Tourmaline crystals can be faceted, or cut into a cabochon, like the blue tourmaline in the ring above.

Tourmalines can sometimes show Dichroism. Depending on the angle of viewing, a stone can show different shades or intensities of colour at the same time. This makes them very interesting to look at when you rotate the stone.

This one has an icy pink tone to it, I surrounded it with pave set diamonds for a bit of sparkle.

If you are ever in Brazil or Madagascar... or my studio... keep an eye out for tourmaline and it's beautiful range of colour.
Next week I will continue on with the Art Deco Garnet ring.