Shell Games Boxed In

This picture has to be one of my favorites. The outside circular perimeter is an antique green shaker box that has been in my grandmother’s house forever. Every summer when I was a child when we were visiting her we would open the box and feel the softness of the tiny shells (they are all about 3/8 of an inch long, max) against our skin. The potent aroma of cloves would rise up out of the box (those brown things amongst the shells in the painting are cloves), with a slight musty something else mixed in. When I smell that aroma I am six again and sitting on the front staircase in the unlighted hallway feeling the cool shells against my arms, before I return to the open attic to find more precious treasures to play with.

This painting has taken a while. It borders on the tedious to paint and takes a fair amount of tenacity to work on. The original shells were mostly very white, my interpretation of them is more varied. I hope I have stayed away from making them look too much like jelly beans. Ugh! I think the painting has presence, whatever that means. Magnetism? At any rate, I like it. I should probably turn it to the wall for a month or two and see if I still like it. I have been picking at it, tweaking the details and fine tuning it to death in between working on other paintings as well. I am uncertain whether the details (see close up) are clean enough, or whether I need to go more photorealistic, though I think it is too late for that. All paintings have some evolution in them; otherwise give up painting, use crayolas and color inside the lines instead. That may be a little harsh. Sometimes it is restful to just color, but even then there are unavoidable micro-decisions that filter through all that we do.

Close Up of Shell Games Boxed In

So my questions for ya’ll are these:

Is it done?

More “finish” or leave it as it is? The shells are still a little rough when viewed up close. I purposely left out the patterning on most shells, it seemed too busy and distracting. The finished look is cleaner without.

The long curved inside edge shadow has been re-worked multiple times, as has the background and all those tiny points of shadow and reflections on the shells. Question: Leave it or tweak it some more?

I am tired, but I’m thinking it needs just a tiny bit more before I can let go of it completely. Maybe I’ll be one of those artists who keeps adding details to pictures years after they’ve been hung. I can see myself at a party some day saying, “Oh that’s one of my pictures, wait just a second, Luv, I’ve got some paint in my car, let me touch up that highlight a bit, add some more seaweed.” Now that is something I hadn’t considered, seaweed.

-Vicky