Beachy Still Life #13

11x15" Watercolor on 140 lb. Kilimanjaro WC paper

Number thirteen features a Channeled Whelk, a small Angelwing, a Buxton Seafood sticker on a very very old wooden paintbox.

Beachy Still Life #12

11x15" Watercolor on 140 lb. Kilimanjaro WC paper

Well I'm off to a solid start to the Fall 2013 semester, which is going to be an interesting one to say the very least. I did manage to fit in number twelve in this series, which features a Hatteras Hi license plate that really should be on the front bumper of my car. Included is a Mexican soda pop bottle and a cockle shell. I've started buying interesting things to drink, etc, if not only for the bottle it comes in!

Beachy Still Life #11

11x15" Watercolor on 140 lb. Kilimanjaro WC paper

Number eleven features a Lettered Olive shell and a Sweetgrass basket that we bought on Edisto Island, probably 23 years ago. At that time there wasn't a basket stand set up and established, but a table set out in a front yard right on highway 174. We pulled over and waited until this young lady came out of the house and sold us this one. We have the vantage point of knowing what we paid for this basket, comparing to what they are selling for today. I think in that amount of time these baskets have been collected all over the world, increasing the value. Rightly so, as they are now recognized as being more than mere craft, but beautiful works of art.

The baskets that these folks make get much more elaborate than the one shown here. Below are  a couple of paintings I did of these ladies some time ago:

Beachy Still Life #10

11x15" Watercolor on 140 lb. Kilimanjaro WC paper

Number ten features a wreath I bought from Lily Howard on Edisto Island in exchange for taking some reference photographs of her, from which I did a couple of paintings some time ago. She and her daughter, and perhaps another woman, have the only Sweetgrass Basket stand on Edisto. In the last decade or so, a lot of attention has been rightfully paid to these basket makers of South Carolina. Primarily because as a people, they have successfully held on to much of their culture through all of these years, the style of the baskets reflect a direct connection with the West coast of Africa. The shell is an Angelwing. They are so fragile a shell that this is the most whole one we've found in years and years of beach combing. They do get much larger, but good luck finding a whole one!

Beachy Still Life #9

11x15" Watercolor on 140 lb. Kilimanjaro WC paper

This is number nine in this series. I wanted to do three of my bottles together to see what it would look like. There is featured here a young, broken knobbed whelk, I think, and an Atlantic giant-cockle shell. The background of this one has a real estate map of Edisto Island (approximately drawn).

Beachy Still Life #8

11x15" Watercolor on 140 lb. Kilimanjaro WC paper

This is number eight. This painting features a Shark's Eye Moon Snail shell. I found this at Edisto of course, at night with a flashlight in the surf on one of our daily evening strolls after dinner. The sand in the bottle is from our favorite house in Avon, NC on Hatteras Island. The background is this piece of rice paper that I've stapled to an old drawing board. I'm progressively adding a blue wash on it as I use it as a background for this series. This is unplanned, but it might take off as an interesting (yeah right) element to this series - don't know.

Beachy Still Life #7

11x15" Watercolor on 140 lb. Kilimanjaro WC paper

Back to the old sketchbooks again. Here is a Knobbed Whelk from Edisto Island, SC. The background is a watercolor sketch I did when we were staying at a really nice house in Duck, NC. The house was almost too nice, we were used to a bit rougher accommodations down in Avon. It did feature this wooden model of a schooner up in the arched window facing the ocean. I liked the silhouette created by the early morning sun.

Beachy Still Life #6

11x15" Watercolor on 140 lb. Kilimanjaro WC paper

Here is number six in this series. I think this is a Kiener whelk found on Edisto Island, as so many of the shells that we've collected are. I have never experienced a beach like Edisto when it comes to complete, whole seashells on the beach itself. There must be someone out there who can explain just why, but I sure can't. I think it's great that there are State Parks like Botany Bay where you cannot collect the shells like we did these probably some twenty years ago. I don't know how to identify sea birds by their feathers, but this one is like no other that I've come across, kinda fluffy.

Botany Bay surf