So my latest big project was a turtle mandala.  I followed the symmetry guidelines of a mandala but drew a stylized scene of turtles swimming in a pond.  The photos aren’t great since once again I took them with my phone because the picture was too large for the scanner.

Drawing small things is hard.  The little turtles made me crazy.  Even when I was sharpening my pencil every few minutes, I couldn’t draw the detail I wanted.  I had drawn the big turtle previously, and I was aiming for that level of detail.  Plus, the turtle head and legs have a pebbly texture, which I could not capture.

I did take a bit more care in trying to keep things symmetric compared to my previous mandala because I was planning this as a gift.

Here it is framed.

I’m pretty happy with it, though I still have a lot of improvement to do.