Turtle on Matboard~Complete

I'm calling this one done. I took a few snapshots of the painting, adjusted the colors & resized the image in my photo editor, then realized my fly needed a couple of legs. I added the legs, went through the whole process all over, then saw a few areas that needed some tweaks...blah, blah, so on and so forth. I think I'm finally happy with the finished painting and the image now, thank God.

As I was painting this I was reminded of Jimmy the Turtle who I rescued from certain death when I was just a kid, probably around 4 years of age. He was trying to cross a busy road near a pond when I spotted him. Despite turtle's reputations for being slow they can actually move pretty darn fast when they want but they tend to pull back into their shells when they hear cars coming. I begged my parents to let me keep him so I brought him home, gave him a name and he lived in a galvanized laundry tub with all the amenities in my side yard for a few weeks. My Dad finally made me realize that Jimmy needed to be back with his family so I had to let him go. Man, that turtle sure hustled when I turned him loose in that pond! It was my first lesson in "If you really love something, sometimes you have to let it go".

Turtle on Matboard~ Update 2

Here's where I'm at today. I decided I like the turquoise and I'm glad I decided to add it. The turtle is basically done. I've got more work to do on the branch he's resting on and I have a fly in the sky to add that my turtle has his eye on. Working on matboard is very different than working on w/c paper. It's difficult to add glazes as the paint tends to lift more easily on this surface, even after the first layers have completely dried, but I believe the textural effects are worth the trouble.

Turtle on Matboard~In Progress

I just finished painting the turtle's shell so I thought I'd post an update. Much more to be done on this one before it's completed but I'm very happy with the way the shell turned out. Not too sure about the turtle itself yet but he's not completed anyway. I stayed with my previous palette of carbazole violet, perylene green and Quin. gold but added some Phthalo turquoise and I'm questioning the wisdom of that right now. We'll see what happens.