Playing around with snails

Apart from their perfect spiralling "house", apart from their interesting reproductive system, apart from their legendary voracity that every gardener knows, snails are quite nice little animals, and very active too. It wasn't so easy to sketch them while they explored the transparent boxes and salad that I provided, let alone describe the intricate patterns on their shell while it changed perspective in  seconds.
When I  set myself to colouring them, I decided to play with colors and the page.
Being a nature painter doesn't mean you have to be too serious about your work,  I believe.
Have fun!

snails and cicadas

Drawing of insects from an Australian garden, given to me by friends and family - a snail and cicada
Watercolour pencil in Moleskine Sketchbook

I had always called both of these cicadas and so when I was drawing these I had to actually find out what they were. I was right . They ARE both cicadas. The shell is what the nymph discards when it emerges from living underground.. I remember them being on paperbark trees. At high school we used to put them on our jumpers  like a  brooch.

This particular cicada is a Bladder Cicada. Not the nicest of names, but definitely the prettiest cicada. It ia the less ïnsect-looking" cicada I think

Cicadas are well known for their song/drone. It happens in summer around dusk. The noise is so loud that we always had to close the windows on those hot Queensland summer nights toblock the noise.
The male Bladder Cicadas have the greatly enlarged abdomen, largely hollow. This is the resonating chamber to amplify the loudness of their songs. Females are smaller in size and relatively smaller abdomen.


and here is the snail......

Watercolor seashells - Mary Richmond

 I have been an invited member here for several years but this is the first time I have actually contributed some drawings/paintings. Almost every day I draw and paint either out in nature or from nature and these seashells were some that I collected on a nearby beach on one of my last walks. It is still too cold here on Cape Cod to spend too much time painting outside, especially on the beach so I did these in my studio. Soon enough I will be back outside.

The first ones are moon snails and even though they are voracious predators I find them beautiful. At this time of year is is rare to find a whole one so when I do it always manages to find its way into my pocket.

These are knobbed whelks and although I have painted many whole ones I love the twists and turns of the ones with holes, cracks and even parts missing.

Both pieces are sketched in pencil and painted in watercolor. I write an almost daily nature blog so please stop by at Cape Cod Art and Nature.

Apple snail studies ~ Elizabeth Smith

Apple snail studies, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Smith.

This empty snail shell was found in a ditch near some woods in town, and although I know it’s an apple snail, I’m not sure which one it is. Florida has one native species of apple snail,  and several invasive species – causing concern among biologists and farmers. The invasive species are probably released from home aquariums. Apple snails are popular in the aquarium trade because they’re attractive and are effective tank cleaners.

Apple snails are the largest freshwater snails on earth; the snail shell I sketched is about 3 inches long! The fact I find most interesting about these snails is their breathing structures. Some snails have gills, and some have lungs, while some (like the apple snail) have both gills AND lungs. Having both breathing arrangements allows them to successfully weather our wet and dry seasons. The Florida apple snail is the main food for the limpkin and the Florida snail kite, an endangered species. No wonder biologists are concerned over the nonnative invaders.

I sketched this shell from several different angles with a Sakura Micron Pigma sepia color pen with an 01 point. Lately, I’ve found myself sketching directly with ink more often, bypassing the preliminary pencil lines. It’s very freeing (once you get over the initial *yikes* factor), and I find that with a fine point and hatch lines, my false starts fade into the rest of the drawing. Anyway, I hope you get a more immediate connection to my subject with this method – unfortunately, I find that the more detail I add, the tighter my drawing gets. Some days I find it very difficult to loosen up my drawing style.

If you’re interested in reading more about these snails, please visit these additional links:

Technical Bulletin on Apple Snails from the Commissioner of Agriculture (PDF)
USGS (United States Geologic Survey), about the Florida apple snail (PDF)

You can also click on the caption below the image to view it on my Flickr photostream.

Garden Snail Adventure

This little creature performed an 180 from being on her back to running away from me - all of this in about 2 minutes total - I added words after she ran away as I barely had time to draw next position - and I am used to drawing moving targets!

Click on the image to see details.

Snail - Maree Clarkson

"The further off from England, the nearer is to France /

Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance."

"Snail" pencil sketch and watercolour in Moleskine Watercolour Sketch-book

Oh my! I found some snails in my garden! They're all over the Agapanthus. One consolation is that there is now plenty to eat for the Thrushes and any passing hedgehogs.

The snails are related to the oyster, the clam, the mussel, the squid and the octopus. All of these animals are called mollusks. More than 30,000 kinds of snails have been described, of which about two-thirds still exist -- about half of them in salt water and the other half in fresh water or on land. The remainder are known only as fossils and, in the limestone quarries around Chicago, we find several kinds-- some as big as your fist-- which have lain buried there since this region was on the floor of the ocean, 150 million years ago.

There are even Graffiti snails roaming London!

Shell shock: One snail has shell graffiti

Most people have to shell out to give their homes a makeover – not so for these multi-coloured molluscs.

The flashy snails have had their drab shells given a paint job for nothing – and they didn't even have to move a muscle.

A London artist, known only as Slinkachu, has used the mollusks' shells for a series of designs dubbed 'Inner City Snail – a slow-moving street art project'.

FOUND THIS AT http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=156464&in_page_id=34