It is a funny story really, that my friend told me after coming back from a deep sea scuba diving vacation. And a bit frightening. But it inspired me to create this painting of a male sea turtle…
Here is the story, with gratitude to Dana for letting me print it here:
“There was this male turtle, a hawksbill turtle. It was mating season and he head-butted me from behind at 60 ft down and tried to “mount” me! It was terrifying. His head was the size of a gallon of milk. He came straight at me face first on a second pass.”
“His shell was probably 2.5’ x 3.5’, so really big for a turtle. The only thing I could do was poke it with my GoPro until it finally swam away. When it came back, I dumped my air out of my Buoyancy Control Device and sank down as fast as I could and it swam over my head. Then it left for real. But I kept one eye behind me the rest of the dive. It is pretty unnerving when something runs into the back of you and that giant beak is right in your face. I had little pet turtles when I was little and they bit. So I was afraid it was going to bite me.”
We had a good laugh about it and then I started to research this particular breed of sea turtle. To do it justice, I started with a wet in wet background first, and used small plants to cover the paints, to give the illusion of vegetation in the water. Then I painted the sea turtle over it.
This is actually the one painting that made me want to transition to acrylic paint, because the colours are so much more vivid. There are certainly more turtles on my mind for future paintings!
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