Shell Paints by Beam Paints

These are so very beautiful.  We’re proud to join the long time tradition of paint makers using shell to hold watercolour, about a quarter of a pan of watercolour nestled in a beautiful shell, tuck a few in your bag for a great on the fly travel kit!

Note: shells are not taken from beaches, they are reclaimed from a food factory and sanitized for new life with paint! 

Each shell has a surprising amount of paint.

About Beam Paints

Beam Paints is the result of a multi-generational love of pigment, paint, colour, and innovation. I was raised by my artist parents, Carl Beam and Ann Beam, and was taught from a young age how to harvest hematite pigment in the LaCloche mountain range near our home in M'Chigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin Island. Beam Paints draws on my early educations in Indigenous pigment and expands it to encompass all paint traditions. A focus on high quality pigment content creates sublime artist materials, with plastic free packaging.  

Lightfast pigments, tree sap, gum arabic, and Manitoulin honey, blend together to create a handmade  saturated colour that is a joy to paint with. From thick stripes to fine washes and details, quality is evident in every stroke. Our watercolours are shaped into paintstones, our version of a half-pan, before being wrapped in beeswaxed canvas. Our pans are packaged in slices of cedar and birch offcuts from an Indigenous sustainable lumber operation.