About the Eastern Box Turtle Drawing

I have encountered thousands of Eastern Box Turtles (Terrapene carolina) over the years, but they still feel like small discoveries. In Blackberry Season, I wanted to capture the brightness, patience, and quiet charm of one feeding among blackberry brambles in season.

The drawing brings together two things that continually draw me to these turtles: the extraordinary variation and detail in their shells and skin, and the way they become part of the landscape around them. The ripe fruit, forest floor, and vivid colors make this an active natural-history scene rather than simply a portrait.

Blackberry Season is a colored pencil wildlife drawing by Michael E. Dorcas for Tantilla Art.