I found this Sea Biscuit on the beach in the Bahamas years ago and have carefully kept it with my collection of found shells. I didn’t know it was called a Sea Biscuit and thought it was a Sand Dollar, but they are actually quite similar. I decided to paint a meditative painting of them, using their unique surface pattern as a basis for some doodles and mark making.

I chose a fairly large piece of paper for this painting as I wanted to include a dozen of these dollars, and then using a ruler I divided the sheet into twelve sections, each 3 inches square. I used a piece of Arches watercolor paper this time, and it was a piece I had stretched. This process is simple and quick, especially if you stretch a few sheets at the same time. It prevents your paper from buckling and warping when you paint on it. If you want info on how I stretch paper, there’s a video here for you to watch.

Materials

My paints for this meditative painting were the Kuretake Gansai Tambi Art Nouveau set. These are now available on amazon.com again and you can see them here.