On the coffee pot
Today is a tale of meeting a snail, hmm…I feel a poem coming on…maybe later.
We went to Alnmouth and explored all around the dunes and on the beach. As we walked between the great high dunes to reach the beach, I couldn’t resist stopping to pick up so many pretty coiled shells. I didn’t have my usual field painting bag with me so I ended up filling my little purse! Those that were packed with sand I plopped into a dish of water to soak once I got home. Imagine my surprise when the next morning I found one of the ‘shells’ crawling up my coffee pot! (Lucky it wasn’t on!)
Well I quickly made his acquaintance and before you knew it he had food and shelter. At first he lived in a little plastic jar with the lid on very loosely on, but now he’s in a glass jar on it’s side with nice mosses to hide under. Click on the page below and read the notes I wrote as I painted his picture that day.
Snail Studies pg 1
My set up with the Model
Here’s my set up while I painted him, he was on the little plate with lettuce etc. but then slide off, and went up the brass lamp about halfway, this is when I took a bathroom break! When I returned I put him on top of my waterbottle, for this picture. I’m using the watercolor pan I take in the field with me all the time, it’s got a good selection of half pans. I used permanent ink marker to draw over my penciled sketches then used watercolor with regular brushes to color. On the right side you can see a rectangle shaped silver thing, that’s my little light up magnifier for reading maps; it’s great for field work.
Close up of snail studies
Here’s a close up of two of the snail studies with notes.
"Escargo Escapee!"
This painting makes me laugh, I did it with just watercolors. He was escaping from the plate…so I called it “Escargo Escapee”…he didn’t want to give me any ideas when I was hungry! The funny thing is I think he’s a copse snail…so a copse snail is escaping…but shouldn’t he be a robber snail then? (Oh gosh I know that’s corny!)
Cuthbert the snail with the shells I found
One more picture for now, more to come soon. I love this shot of him with the empty shells I found…poor thing, he’s probably crawling around them saying,”Where’d everybody go?” I decided to name him Cuthbert after the Patron St. of Northumberland, we found him near the cross for St. Cuthbert in Alnmouth.
Here’s a great website I found on snails, this page has a diagram on shell parts and helps with identifying your snail:
http://www.petsnails.co.uk/documents/species/idyoursnail.html#start
And another one all about British wildlife and countryside that I’ll be using,UK Safari. Here’s the page that looks like my snail:
http://www.uksafari.com/gardensnail.htm
I have already drawn more pages of sketches and I’m recording changes in his shell growth. Please come back soon to see what happens to him! I have created some really neat gifts with these snail images on them, please have a look and pass the link to my shop onto your friends!
http://www.zazzle.com/marymcandrew/gifts?cg=196997618923146905
More paintings and studies coming soon of new snails I found!
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