Mr. Turtle’s Portrait

Mr. Turtle

I am still pretty busy outside of the studio these days so I have been choosing smaller projects that I can pick up or stop easily. I have talked about Mr. Turtle before and decided that a small water color/ink portrait of him would fit the bill.  I also need more animal portrait samples for my etsy shop and the picture I took of him last month was pretty good for that.  He is a lovely shade of dark brown with golden markings.  I think the markings are so distinctive to the individual that each one can be identified by them.  As you can see, he was peering up at me when I took his picture.  I never tried to pick him up so he wasn’t too afraid.  He kept his head out the whole picture taking session, even when I walked around to photograph him from both sides.  I think we have come to an agreement.  I kind of like the look in his eye.

I have been using the nib pen and india ink to sketch out a base for the watercolor in the animal portrait work.  I like the fluidity and variation of the pen stroke for the animal art versus the technical pen for the architecturals.  Also, I am not really using the nib pen for a lot of detail in these.  I want to keep a sketch like quality to the work.

And Mr. Turtle has been living life on the edge lately.  Last week he had to be picked up out of the way a riding lawn mower and relocated to a safer spot.  All I can say is “whew” for him.  He’s fairly good size but seeing him in the tall grass was fortunate.