More Desert Tortoise photos

I have been excited about the prospect of seeing the desert tortoise after our first encounter a week or so ago. On Friday, Matthias, Marti, Mr. Pono and I went to the same area as our first encounter for the morning run/walk. I had my trusty camera with me, of course. Fortunately, my desires to see one were realized. In fact, we saw two! The first one was alongside the road, and pretty much had retreated into its shell. The second one was not as shy, and with my trusty tiny zoom lens I did get a couple of photos.

To answer some questions about this creature, the desert tortoise is an herbivore. It gets most of its water from the plants and cactus that it eats. An adult tortoise can live for a year without water. (Impressive!) It survives the desert heat by digging burrows. It hibernates for 95% of its life. The burrows also protect this critter from the cold in the winter. It is a relative of the turtle, who lives in water. The tortoise is a land dweller, which is obvious when you look at its legs and feet. If you would like to read more about the tortoise, click here. I am quite infatuated with them.

As promised, I am posting two of the tiny new watercolor abstracts. These are postcard size (6 x 4 inches) and were painted on cold pressed, 140 lb. watercolor paper. (For those of you who aren't familiar with watercolor paper, cold pressed paper tends to have a bit more texture than hot pressed paper. 140 lb. paper is pretty heavy paper, heavier than most card stock. There are more of these coming. I am having trouble with a title on this first one. For now, I am calling it "Sienna and Blue." Not a particularly compelling title, is it? The second one is called "On the Edge." Since these are so tiny, I am considering using them as studies for larger paintings in oil. The first one is my favorite of the two, but I think they both have potential.