Woke up this morning and went swimming for the first time in ages (therapist’s orders!) It felt great, after nearly 5 months of being sidelined with the ol foot injury, to be able to exercise again, and to do so in a way which felt fairly weightless.

It’s left me in a bit of a beachy mood, so I spent the afternoon painting quick sketches of seashell from the New Jersey shore (which live in my bathroom) and then sewing over them to try a new way of accenting them. Here’s what I came up with!

First doing line drawings of the shells with pencil.

Then adding a very light wash of watercolour:

And finally sewing over the image with thread to add accents:

Version with one shell:

The two sketches together: