Hello Friends,

The photo I have of this is very dark and dense so I tried to lighten it some in my painting. The sea turtle is swimming sideways trying to avoid these sharks so that is bottom of the turtle you see.  I have seen this happen on videos I have watched and it is so awful!  I feel the sea turtle’s fear when I am watching (or maybe it’s just my fear!!) However, depending on the size of the sea turtle, they can usually take care of themselves pretty well.  I like to think this one got away just fine.  I can’t imagine being the photographer taking that picture!  In the photo it all looks a lot smaller so the photographer was probably at a safe distance.

I guess by now if you have been reading my blog for any length of time you have gathered how much I love sea turtles!  They are such beautiful creatures and are declared endangered animals mostly because of the people who keep killing them for their meat and beautiful shells!  But obviously, other ocean creatures like sharks attack them for food.  It is the way of the natural life cycle, which I can handle, but for people to kill them for profit just saddens me greatly.  I suppose that’s why I love to paint them so much.

I read an article by another artist recently who said he thought it was a waste of time to paint the same subject over and over.  I heartily disagree!  Many artists like Vincent van Gogh and Frida Kahlo painted their self-portraits in many different poses and interpretations.  And I think the more you know a subject, the more you learn about it as you paint it differently each time for instance experimenting with poses and color.  Besides, there are seven different types of sea turtles so they don’t all look the same.  All I know is I never get tired of them.  I feel I still have so much to learn about watercolor painting as well as sea turtles, so if learning about these two subjects and putting them together is all I get around to doing the rest of my life, I’ll die a happy woman!

After all, I think having a passion for using our heads for something more than a hat rack is a good thing!

Have a wonderful day, and give someone you love a big hug!  🙂