At least for now. It is rare that I finish a painting and think, “That’s good. I am happy with it”.

So I am savoring this!

Anyway, I can’t find the reference photo I used. It was a green turban snail shell or Turbo marmoratus. They look something like this.

I confess, I am behind on this blog. I finished this painting at least a year ago but have a stack of them in date order to blog. Well, some of them are not worth it and some of them will never see the light of day. It’s like that sometimes.

This was to be another in my continuing quest for painting perfect sea foam. I wanted a new kind of shell and went hunting, probably on my favorite source Inaturalist.org or Unsplash.com.

I did a quick pencil layout then started doodling in the sea foam with Fine Line Masking fluid. You might think, if you have read a few of my posts on here, that I work for either FIne Line or Daniel Smith. Nope, never had. I use and recommend the products that work for me. And yes, I provide Affiliate links to Amazon. If you click on a link and buy something, I get a few cents. It is not enough to even cover my web host fees but why not? If you learned something from here or just want to support my journey or show me some love on Paypal.

And even if you don’t want to actually buy on Amazon – It’s really my only choice as the only art supply store is a distance away – you can still just click a link to see the color swatches on Amazon.

Preliminary layout with Fine Line Masking fluid

From the photos I have been looking at, sea foam has main solid channels of foam with cells of different bubbles. The trick seems to be to get the channels laid out then fill in the cells, trying to vary their sizes and give it all some life and movement.

Sea foam cells laid out with Fine Line Masking fluid

For painting the background, I got the paper very wet, going over and over it several times with clean water. When layering the pigments, I don’t want any dryish areas as I like it when all the colors flow together.

Yes, with many watercolors, this would create “mud” but the pigments in Daniel Smith colors tend to mind their own business and not mingle well. This is partly due to their granulation and partly due to the “Primatek” pigments which are mostly inert minerals in a binder. Or at least that is my guess.

I tend to use the same background pigments over and over but I always get different effects. Here is Burgundy Yellow Ochre with Goethite for the sand with a little Grumbacher Academy Davy’s Gray – which to me just looks like concrete dust. The pinkish tint in the sand is the wonderful Minnesota Pipeline which is an light adobe color.

The thing I have noticed, however, it that the Davy’s Gray and the Burgundy Yellow Ochre tend to granulate wonderfully when I sprinkle salt on top.

The water is Cerulean and Terre Verte.

Watercolor in progress - after the background had dried

While all the pigments are still wet and floating in their puddles, I throw on some Morton’s Salt. Other people have told me that doing that creates white spots but if there is enough pigment, the salt just seems to move it around. This is not something that I know how to control so I am always surprised when it dries. The darkest areas are caused by the Davy’s Gray.

You can rewet and paint again if it is absolutely awful – I have done this a time or two!

Here’s a bit of a detail of the effect –

Detail of granulation after applying salt to watercolor

With the masking removed, I went over the sea foam with a wet, flat brush to soften the harsh edges and sketched in the shell details then added some more Fine Line Masking fluid to the inside of the shell to preserve a few white areas.

As always, I have no idea how to paint a sea shell except to just dive in and make it up as a go along. The green in particular in the shell is scary as it is just so green!

Watercolor in progress - painting a green turban shell

I confess I just love the dark browns that came out – I used Sodalite, which is a very deep blue that granulates like crazy, Transparent Brown Oxide and Quinacridone Sienna. The glowing blue on the shell lip is just a touch of Manganese Blue Hue and Cobalt. The interior is Amethyst, Potter’s Pink and Hematite Violet Genuine.

I usually have all these pigments on my palette all the time – sometimes just a little glob of them so I can paint away without stopping to grab a tube or even think about it.

And then the green – Cobalt Green with is a pigment that I wish I hadn’t bought. It does not spread well but just clumps – fine in this instance – and a bit of Fuchsite – which I also don’t like as it is sparkly – but I think they work here. Not perfect but overall OK.

Then it seemed to me that I had put too much pigment in the shell interior and lost the light and curve so I grabbed an oil painting flat to lift some of the pigment and “shape the bowl”.