Beachcombing is a truly amazing hobby that many nature lovers swear by, including Lisa Orlans. She collected countless empty snail shells while exploring the beaches of Florida, and she’s now transforming them into tiny works of art.
Orlans grew up in Jupiter, Florida, and she always saw this small town as a perfect place for beachcombing. This hobby has followed her since her early days, and she used to collect everything from sea glass to shark teeth before settling on empty snail shells.
Painting on snail shells is quite a process for Orlans, who collects them along the banks of the rivers and lakes. She then boils them clean and scrubs them with soap, and it can take her up to six hours to paint over them. She uses resin for glossiness and strength, before decorating the shells with pearls, studs, or rhinestones.
Nature is the main driving force behind her work, and she’s mostly inspired by “graceful lines and colors that can be found in a sunset, a shell, a butterfly wing, or the leaf of a fern”, as she told Beach Combing Magazine.
Painting empty snail shells started as a hobby, but Orlans managed to transform her passion into a small business, and she’s selling her pieces on her Etsy page Rocky Road Art Studio.
