Seashells to Draw or Paint

The internet is a wonderful place to find photos and pictures of subjects to paint or draw. I have taken many photos of seashells and always thought that one day I would make the effort to draw them. Recently a blogger linked to my site because she had used a seashell image to make a drawing. It started me thinking that I need to get going and give it a try.

Some Favorite Seashell Photos

The shells I find while out boating and beach-combing deserted islands are not very pretty. But maybe a more natural, uncleaned look could make for an interesting subject to draw. I don’t paint, but a painter may be interested.

The Horse Conch seashells below are probably among the best shells in my collection. First, because they were too large to contain hermit crabs, so I could bring them home! That doesn’t happen too often when I find a conch or whelk. I’ve seen live horse conchs, which are quite amazing.

The Knobbed Whelk shell below was one of my favorite shell finds. All I could do was take photos and leave it where I found it, but it was a stunner. Look at that coloring! A very large hermit crab had chosen it as it’s home. This beautiful shell would be fun to do in colored pencil. Getting those shades of gray and tan right would be a challenge. See more photos of this shell at the link provided above.

The crown conch below was found in shallow water in Mosquito Lagoon and he was attached to a piece of wood. I like the green coloring on his shell. Once seashells are cleaned up and polished, they rarely look the same as they do in the wild.

The beautifully colored fighting conch below was another gorgeous shell I would have loved to keep. A painter could create a lovely piece of art using these maroon and orange colors. Unfortunately the photo is not so great, and I apologize. It’s so sunny out on the water that I usually can’t see what I am doing. I take pictures and hope for the best.

The long pointed sections of the crown conch below were so amazing to me. Crown conchs are easily identified because of this feature, but it was very pronounced here. This would be fun to draw.

You can probably find better photos of all the shells on this page. I don’t clean my shells to the point where they look like museum specimens. And many of my favorite shells are in photographs only because they were either living, or contained living creatures.

The scallop shell below is turning black, which means it was buried for a while. (Read about black seashells here.) Where I live, on the East, central coast of Florida, I rarely see scallop shells on the beach. The few I’ve collected were found on the shores of Ponce Inlet.

For more seashell images, check out sites like Pixabay, where all images are free to download and use for almost any purpose.

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