Mussels was one of the first of my Sea Creatures series. I used to climb all over the jetties in Cape May and down at the Point, often fishing off of them with my dad, uncles, & grandpop. Now that I’m middle-aged (which is kind of a tough pill to swallow, but another subject entirely) I don’t scramble on slippery rocks quite so easily, so I stay away. But I remember as kids my friends and I would, perhaps unbeknownst to our parents, dare each other to swim to the end of the jetties and pry a mussel off to prove we did it. Risky? Absolutely. Dumb? Probably. Fun? You betcha! This painting is dedicated to youthful folly.

Mussels took a long time to complete. I started with a dull brown undercoat, sketched out the main areas, then began blocking in the 3 major areas of color: the water, the sand, and the rocks. The seaweed and the rocks are many, many layers of paint to subtly build up the color and suggest dimension and solidity. The mussels themselves took a couple days to paint, as I already had quite a few hours into this and didn’t want to “mess it up”. After I let this sit for a couple weeks, I decided to add the schools of fish in the background to enhance the vastness of the ocean and to balance out the small details of sand and pebbles in the sand. I am very proud of this piece, and will miss it when it sells.

Acrylic on canvas

w24" x h18"

Framed