Desert Tortoise

Desert Tortoise - watercolor and Inktense pencil Here’s a watercolor of a Desert Toroise, inspired by an encounter that I had a couple of years ago.

I was walking up a shallow wash in the Sonoran Desert, just outside of Tucson. It was in the late Spring, 2003. There had just been a rainstorm and the air had that lovely wild, slightly medicinal cresote bush smell that it gets after a rain.

I’d seen a Tiger Rattlesnake about 15 minutes earlier. I had never seen one of those before, and I thought the day couldn’t get any better.

Then I came across a Desert Tortoise as he waddled up the wash. The tortoise paused, and stared at me with his strange, human-looking eyes. then he continued up the wash, heaving his unlikely-looking shell over the rocks and cobbles.