Painted Piece Finished

Next step was to work more on the detailing and start the background. I started with a beige background and added table salt to the paint for some texture. Adding a touch of Procion MX powdered dye to the paint is something I do now and then when I KNOW I am going to put on multiple layers of color and KNOW that I want the color to bleed through to the layer on top.
After fussing with the back ground a LOT I decided beige wasn't doing it for me. I wanted it to be more dramatic and for the shell to stand out more so I started mixing some white and black paint ON the fabric. That looked better but it was very close to being over worked. Danger! Walk away! Which is what I did so I could let that dry and think about what was to come next.
The next day I came back ready to work out my problem. The best part of this piece is the translucent section of the shell so I won't touch that. Machine stitching will help.

I started machine stitching the detail portions of the shell in a dark gray and dark grayish brown thread. Better! It is time to let this one be. I sewed on the backing and am done. In reality the background gray is a lot smoother but the salt still stands out as texture. Hard to photograph but it's there.