The Snail Seller

There are a variety of vendors on foot pushing carts on the streets of Phnom Penh. This particular vendor was selling snails that are harvested from the many suspicious smelling drainage ditches and ponds in and around the city. the cart that they are sold from has a sheet metal top onto which the snails are scattered. Apparently it is the sun on the sheet metal that cooks this delicacy as the vendor is walking along. This vendor is wearing a straw hat, somewhat unusual, under which is the traditional Ghrama being used in this case as a head covering. The Ghrama is an article of clothing that is owned by every Cambodian man, woman and child. They are worn as everything from a skirt by men and women to head covering to baby wraps.
This painting was done on a 9x12 block of Kilimanjaro, 140# cold press watercolor paper. I painted the entire piece with a #10 sable. I used some liquid mask on this piece (which is unusual for me) to maintain the light on the hat string and on the edges of the straw hat. I included the enlarged image so that students can see more clearly the how of this piece. The light that I took this pic in was rather flat so I needed to take some license with the treatment of the light. There is actually far less contrast in the subject than I have portrayed in the final painting. This is the first of many that I will be doing from the wealth of pics we brought back from our recent visit to Cambodia and Thailand.