Lisa Orlans has always been a huge fan of beachcombing, and she found a way to transform it into an art form in recent years. She specializes in collecting empty snail shells and decorating them with the most amazing patterns, full of intricate colorful details.
Orlans fell in love with beachcombing while growing up in Jupiter, Florida, and enjoyed collecting everything from sea glass to shark teeth. She also enjoyed painting rocks as a child, and she’s now exploring that same passion on a different canvas – empty snail shells.
Orlans’ snail shells are always ethically collected, and she gathers them along the banks of the rivers and lakes after they’ve been discarded by birds. Her collection kept on growing, and she eventually decided to paint them, using nature as her main source of inspiration.
“The graceful lines and colors that can be found in a sunset, a shell, a butterfly wing, or the leaf of a fern… those are the things that amaze me most. I have come to realize just how much getting out in nature grounds me and keeps me sane,” she told Beach Combing Magazine.
The demand for Orlans’ painted shells was immediate, and she later launched her brand Rocky Road Art Studio, selling her art on eBay and Etsy.
