For this week’s drawing practice, I drew a box turtle shell.  A friend suggested that I explore using color after he saw my mandala. So I bought some colored pencils and went crazy. I only planned to draw one tile of the shell, so I didn’t center everything up.  But then one tile ended up leading to a second, and then a third, and 3 hours later I had an entire turtle shell.  I’m not sure I have space to add the head, so assume that this is a scared turtle, with all the tasty bits pulled inside the shell so bad eagles cannot eat it.

This drawing is done on resume paper, which is not the most ideal material for colored pencils.  I wanted to be able to scan the drawing, so I was stuck with resume paper, copier paper, or trying to cut down my drawing paper with scissors.  I thought the texture of the resume paper would help it take the color better, but it was actually too textured, and it was hard to cover all the white paper in the depressions.  I also know nothing about colored pencils, so I was winging it.  Still, I think it came out pretty well.