Ballet Turtle Drawing

(Final image for card)

My niece's first ballet recital was last weekend and I really felt that the ballet cards I did find were lacking...  So I decided to make one myself.  My turtle, Crush, was the inspiration.  He gets up on his rock under the sun or the light and stretches out into what look like ballet moves to me. 

He was sitting up on his rock last week and I snapped a photo then just sketched the below drawing from the photo.  My drawing background from college is a lot of scientific illustration classes so I tend to draw realistic. I decided he needed ballet shoes to finish it off.

I often miss drawing, my hands are usually busy making something instead of using a pen or pencil.  This was a nice opportunity to to just unplug into a little bit of drawing while I grab on to my very random inspiration. 

Between the sketch and the colored-in Photoshop version I'm not sure which I like better.  I tried to put pink or purple in the background on the final version but blue just seemed to fit the best, maybe becasue it feels a bit like water. I post about the cats most of the time, but Crush's tank is in my office and we hang out in the mornings while I have my coffee and journal or get my computer-work done. It's hot out today so I'll probably take him outside to play in the yard while it's nice so he can get some full sun.