Another page of sketches from Gulf Shores. I was amazed at the color diversity I saw looking at Heather’s shell collection this year. I have never seen a green shell when collecting in the past. I also have never seen the fragile beauty of the tiny shell with the purplish stripes. The green, purple and pinkish/gray shells were all tiny, fragile things – obviously not drawn to scale. I was just trying to capture the general shape, color and direction of the stripes and blotches. I really mangled the purple stripes which were a delicate purple/magenta color much lighter than shown. Oh well – I was on vacation… I’m always too hard on myself. It’s our nature, isn’t it?
Just a quick note about the BP Oil spill. Workers were on the beach two days during our visit searching for and cleaning small blobs of oil from the beach. This activity ended while we were visiting Gulf Shores. I did not see any oil in evidence but my son-in-law saw two small blobs. The birds and fish and dolphins appear to have recovered but I thought you would find it interesting to know that BP continued to fund clean-up until January 2 or 3, 2013 and that it has now stopped. I hope the municipal areas continue to monitor the situation since this was such a massive environmental disaster. Again, I must be honest – I didn’t see any problem during my visit. Here are my shells:
Gulf Shores Shells
Linda Halcomb's Blog 
I always pick up a few shells when I walk the beach. Sometimes I return some to their beach home because my collection grows too large. I wonder why they are sp pleasing. Perhaps we see them as jewels from the sea.
My daughter picked up two big piles of shells but then she kept only about 6-8 and returned the rest to the Gulf. I think shells allow us to interact with a special part of nature and connect us to the sea. AND they are so beautiful!
Glad to see you are back and posting again. We collected shells with our kids in the late 80’s on the South Carolina beaches. They are often so beautifully colored aren’t they. I have never seen a green one either, so that is quite a find. All of the sea creature sketches are lovely. It is so refreshing to do something different.
Refreshing, relaxing, renewing. I need every minute of my quiet time by the sea.
I think you captured the contours of these shells very well, Linda. The color is beautiful!
Thank you Leslie. I like to travel with colored pencils but you can’t necessarily get the subtle colors quite right.
I always pick up shells when we are on a beach vacation. Then the Husband stares at me and says “what are you going to do with them?” I hold on to them for a while, but they end up going back into the sand eventually. I really like your shell drawings.
aloha Linda. it looks to me like you have a good feel for these shapes. and yeah we are often hard on ourself. no need to be tho. just be focused and just play.
remember most people will not have the shell in front of them to compare your work to the actual shell. and is that the point anyway?
i’d say, play and have fun with the color—you are simply taking inspiration from the actual shells. and then the work can speak for itself (imo).
these are way fun. i can recognize the individual kinds of shells. and probably the specific shells if i had them before me too. still. . . . it’s really about your color and what you want to play with, isnt it? that’s the way i see it.
yeah too, it sounds like BP is (or has been) making a good faith effort to clean the area up. it’s hard to really know the long term effects but all we and they can do at this point is try and do our best. i will give them credit. i think they are making a genuine good faith effort. i hope it results in a future where there are no more massive spills as well. thanks for the update on that. aloha.