Moon Snails All Over

I have always loved Moon Snails. I find them on the beach at Cape Cod, and out on the flats at low tide. Usually they are broken, but sometimes not.

One day I brought home a handful of them, and was standing in the front yard chatting with a neighbor when I felt a tickling in my hand. A hermit crab had set up house in one of the shell fragments! So I had to carry him back to the beach.

Some of my shells are Sharks Eye, which are a type of Moon Snail. My favorites are the Northern Moon Snails, which are more colorful and have more dramatic spirals, like this one.

The spirals always go the same direction: clockwise from the center, when you look at the outside of the shell.

My brother, who reads a lot, tells me that there are rare snail shells that go counter clockwise, so I am on a lifelong quest for  the “widdershins” Moon Snail! (Did you ever wonder what they called it before the invention of the clock?)

I have been drawing and painting Moon Snails for about 30 years. This is an oil painting I did in graduate school, about 1981 I think!

 Last summer I took a workshop with James Koehler, and he asked us each to bring along supporting materials for a concept or symbol of our choice. I brought Moon Snails.

This is the sketch I came up with for a small tapestry: a broken Moon Snail shell, with a shadow that is a perfect waning moon!

That was in July, and I have still not finished it. It’s being woven sideways, the left side in this photo will be the top of the tapestry. In other words, I will turn the tapestry clockwise when it’s done.

I got stuck on that thin yellow curve, and had to figure out a better way to do it. Now that I fixed that, I should be able to finish it pretty quickly, and I will….tomorrow…..or maybe the next day.

Meanwhile, my 2011 Sketch Diary is well on its way. Every day I draw in one of the squares. My rules are fairly simple.

Rule #1 Sketch every day  #2 No going back to fix what I did the day before. #3 Don’t think too much or judge what I’ve done #4 Draw what I feel like drawing  #5 Work quickly.

I started page 1 with Moon Snails, thinking I would change the subject for page 2, but I ended up doing 3 pages of Moon Snails!  I just started page 4 and it is much more abstract. More about that later. Here is page 1. So many Moon Snails!