When my art career began, I received an assignment to create eight paintings of seashells to be sold as prints. I am posting more images from that project. Below are my paintings and I have included some close-ups. Here is a link to: A SEASHELL MEDLEY – PART 1
When my art career began, I received an assignment to create paintings of seashells that would be sold as prints.
I was given the assignment after sharing the above painting with a publisher. I needed to come up with 8 paintings that were unique. He only requested that there weren’t any shells cropped off.
I made my paintings differ by the amount of seashells; there were a pair of single shells and two pairs of groups. Another pair of paintings even included driftwood with the seashells.
I loved the beautiful colors, textures and shapes of the seashells that I illustrated. I also ended up having a wonderful shell collection when I was finished. I share four of the posters here with some close-ups. For the sand, I splattered the paint with a toothbrush.
I have a blog where I describe my technique and have a lot more information. It is at:
My song, “Alabaster Seashell” began with three simple stanzas I wrote when I was 17. I vaguely remembered only part of the melody for the “Alabaster Seashell.” But it was the beautiful chord progressions, which utilized a different guitar tuning, that enraptured me. I knew my song needed something more, but I had no idea how I was going to expand my song about a seashell. I started to experiment to see what I could come up with.
I have always loved seashells and deeply appreciated their indescribable beauty. When my art career first began, I received an assignment to create a series of eight, large paintings of seashells, which would be marketed as prints. As I painted dozens of seashells, I became quite familiar with their intricate shapes and colors.
I was surprised how telling the story of a seashell memento also stirred up many emotions inside of me. My memories of collecting seashells began during childhood. I kept jars of them in my bedroom and each shell represented a beautiful memory of a day spent searching the seashore. With those feelings, I started to compose some new lyrics to add to my song, but then I had such a major revelation with “The Alabaster Seashell” that it took my breath away.
My song was originally based upon the story of a boyfriend giving me a seashell when I was in my teens. With that story, I pictured myself older and looking back at the treasured memory my boyfriend gave me long ago, after we were no longer in love. But as I sang my old melody, suddenly my heart took me somewhere else. I was swept to a clear day at the beach. I squinted as the brilliant sun warmed my soul. My young son was walking with me along the seashore. Then, he bent down and excitedly cupped a sparkling white seashell in his hands to show me. His blue eyes were shining. The revelation of how my song had changed and the memory of that tender moment caused me to become overwhelmed with emotion. I realized that I had discovered how my song could be expanded.
I decided that a seashell was a beautiful metaphor about seeing death in a positive way. The creature that once inhabited the seashell left something beautiful behind when it died. Although the creature was gone, the seashell could bring comfort with its beauty and with the memories. The “Alabaster Seashell” reminded me of a magnificent day combing the beach with Jason. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I quickly scrawled out additional lyrics for my song.
These are original pages where I developed new lyrics for a song I wrote when I was 17.
