Patterns for Sea Shells!

Digging in boxes again, I have found some small canvases and drawings I had forgotten about - my sea shell collection from several years ago. I will also post the pictures of the painted ones if I can find the files.

I have loved seashells my entire life - from the time I saw the first one when I was about three years old. I used to paint them on needlepoint canvas their true and original colors, but a few years ago, after seeing some jewelry, I decided to use "Caribbean colors" and add pearls, etc.

The first picture is actually a green tree snail, but I took liberties with it. I found a treasure of pictures in a gorgeous encyclopedia of shells, plus a few other books on the subject. Marine biology is of great interest to me, so I've really enjoyed these books. (It's nice to be able to justify expenditures).

The second picture has only been partially painted, and the jewels added - I hope I have a photo of this one in color. It's about 5 1/2" high.

The next two are the drawings on canvas, ready to paint, with the little "pearls" drawn also. The long, skinny one is 5 3/4" high. The shorter one is 5 1/4" high.

These are all that I have on canvas with the pearls, but there are more that are drawings of the actual shapes but without jewels. Also I found lots of just drawings on paper that I'll pass along in thenext post (while I'm still working on trees).

All of these shell shapes are drawn from pictures of the actual shells, so you might paint them realistically (leaving off the jewels) or do them in your choice of colors and do the pearls too.