G is for gem. But which g? Which gem?

Song of Solomon: timeless love poetry in contemporary calligraphy.  


As soon as I saw the final lines, about being ravished with one glance, "with one gem from your necklace" I knew that the word "gem" was a gift. No calligrapher could resist enlarging that g and embedding a round gem in it.  Since the landscape was rendered in tints of gray-blue, I liked the contrast of sharp green;  this all added up to an emerald.*

*Everybody's an art critic.  My husband, an expert on minerals, looked at my design and protested, "But no gem cutter would ever give an emerald a round cut like that!"   

At right: Triangles and rhomboids in just four shades 
of paint can suggest an emerald: black, dark green, pale 
green, and white.  If you have trouble, use a photograph,
above, to make the facets hold still.  It's a good exercise  
in painting what you see, not what you think you see.  

Paint

Paint