Wasn't sure I'd get control of this

I wasn't sure I'd really get control of this one. I had sketched the image in so roughly in charcoal that I wasn't sure I could get the complicated relationships of the shells right. But last night, after having set this aside for at least a month or more, (I've lost track) I was able to come back to it and get it to a point where I might be able to get excited about finishing it. It's large (for my studio, anyway) at 30 by 40 inches. A nice Belgian linen, which I like for the irregularities in the weave, stretched over a heavy set of stretchers.

This is the underpainting. It's an old master technique that really simplifies things: Get the drawing done in a monochromatic color scheme and then, when you have that done to your satisfaction, glaze the color over it.

I usually do this under-painting in burnt umber and Gamblin's quick dry white (really just white with some alkyd mixed in to speed what would otherwise be a slower than normal oil.) Lighter colors always take longer to dry, and especially the whites.

This time, in addition to the burnt umber, I used a second color made by Old Holland, called Extra Sepia. True sepia is a color made from the inky secretions of the cuttlefish, a very 19th century kind of color. I didn't think this was really true sepia but I looked on the label and found to my surprise that the color is actually a version of bone black. This is another 19th century color in which the color was arrived at by burning animal bones.

If you find that kind of creepy, go look up the color that was known as mummy. Guess what they used to make that color!