I forgot my camera - I forgot my sketchpad!

 What greater tragedy than that! Our first hours on the Galapagos Islands - our first walk among the giant Galapagos tortoises. I opened my backpack to find only an extra pair of shoes... I brought the wrong backpack!
So I began to shuffle along in a sullen walk destined only to observe and attempt to remember my impressions, while other tourists joyfully snapped away their visual record of our experience.  

Finally I found a menu with a blank back page, borrowed a pen, and began sketching one solitary tortoise grazing on some of the foliage. This exercise lasted nearly 1/2 hour I think ('got lost in our time spent together) - just me and this ancient specimen of life, probably twice my age (160 years old?!), totally engaged with each other alone, away from the hustle of the other tourists. 

A visit to the Galapagos Islands offers opportunity to ponder. For me, this was a lesson to stand back from the technical compulsion to snap that perfect Kodak moment and instead think about the creation story and recreation of life that occurs hour after hour, for animals and plants (and even stones as indicated by this lava rock in the middle of the Pacific), and the continual demand of nature to adapt in order to survive.  

Here's my initial sketch from the back of that menu. Later I'll refine the image in a sketch, then maybe a final drawing with details.

​