Laughing Gull and Horseshoe Crab

The laughing gull is a bird of the warmer seacoast. The adults in breeding plumage are a dapper gray and white with a black head. However, I frequently prefer to paint creatures not in their prime. In this case the immature has a beautiful pattern of cool gray and warm browns.

When I travel I often pick up natural objects which can be stored as subjects for future sketches and paintings. Among the most spectacular of these trophies are the horseshoe crab exoskeletons. They almost have the quality of a modern sculpture or a primitive mask.

Laughing gulls congregate by the thousands when horseshoe crabs are spawning and devour the eggs and even the flesh of the adults that are washed ashore. For this reason, and because I thought the form of the crab echoed the form of the bird, I used the two of them in the same picture.