KT Painted It: Leopard Painted Sea Shells

I'm really excited to share this post with all of you! I've been working on painting these shells for the last two days, and it has been very rewarding watching the paintings unfold. I think my trip to the national gallery of art may have been the underlying inspiration to start painting these pieces.

In an effort to help me relax and preoccupy myself while I waited to hear about my board scores, my mom collected 20 or more sea shells from the beach for me to paint. I painted three on our trip to Nags Head, which you can see here!

So here is my work station. Ergonomically it sucks! But I like having background noise (hence the Harry Potter movie marathon that I began yesterday...currently watching the sixth movie...dont. judge. me.) Oh, and the "You're Awsome" mug was a graduation gift from my brother-in-law and his girlfriend - and I want both of them to know that I sat drinking out of that cup as I anxiously awaited by board scores and I PASSED! But I digress...

I decided to paint a set of two leopard shells. Why leopard? Well I think they are beautiful animals and the my leopard purse might maybe may have sparked my imagination. 

I painted the back of both shells gold first, and then the underside of the shells white. I'm not an expert shell-painter, but I've found that using white as a base helps the other colors to stand out better. 

For the first shell, I decided to paint only the eye of the leopard. Here is my process:

Next, I moved to the larger shell. I painted over the white with turquoise, which matched the color of the eye of the leopard on the first shell. Then, I traced my design onto the shell with a black watercolor pencil. I painted over the lines with white, and then got to work. 

And here they are, my two leopard sea shells hand painted with acrylics!

 I also painted a set of three peacock shells which are absolutely lovely!

If you are interested in purchasing these shells or others that I have designed and painted, visit my Etsy shop! I'm currently working on a set of zebra shells :)

Thank you to everyone for supporting me and visiting my blog. I appreciate all of the support! Please leave comments with suggestions for did-its or any feedback

Happy Painting/Crafting/Living Life to the Fullest!

Katy-did