This piece was a commission to be something nautically inclined, with crabs being foremost among the themes. Given the opportunity, who doesn’t love crab and shrimp feeding appendages up close???
Cancer productus is a native of our fair Puget Sound waters, and is carnivorous- wasting no time wasting barnacles by crushing them in its pincers. This piece is fairly large, 24×48 inches, and was fun to do because of the diversity in colors and textures. I took some liberties to stylize some of the forms in pushing it further into the camp of “art”, and I am happy how it turned out- real close to what I had envisioned before I started.
This won’t be my last crab! The next painting should be an even closer look at those wicked apparatus, (which by the way is the plural of the singular apparatus!)