White Gelly Roll pen, Lexington grey fountain pen and water-brush,watercolour, A6 – 30 minutes

Heavy day-time rain drew the garden snails out, so I collected a few and sketched them as they moved across a table. For a creature that’s proverbially slow  (1 meter per hour) they move a lot, their heads and tentacles constantly twisting and feeling out the way, making them tricky to draw.

They’re unusual creatures; hermaphrodite, nocturnal, hibernating, have one lung, are edible, live about 2 years, and have been spread from Europe to most parts of the world. And I’ve never noticed before that the spiral of the shell is always on the right hand side of the snail’s body, not that they have any hands, just the one foot…