The spirit of the Gulf challenge

 A Green Sea Turtle hatchling at the surf line. Reference photo by Seth Patterson on flickr.

To raise consciousness about the plight of the Gulf of Mexico, Suzanne McDermott issued challenges to some artists to follow the Spirit of the Gulf Challenge. I received the challenge through two fellow artists and bloggers Cathy Gatland at Sketch in Time and Dan Kent at Dan's Canvas, when they challenged every reader of their blogs to participate. Whilst we cannot change the physical damage which has occurred, this challenge may raise awareness.  After all we live on one planet and it's one sea.

THE SPIRIT OF THE GULF CHALLENGE:

• Find a photo or other resource depicting some living aspect of the Gulf of Mexico before the oil disaster or
• Tap into your spirit and use your imagination

• Make a drawing, painting or other piece of creative work with love and gratitude for the beautiful life of whatever you're depicting.

• Post what you make on your website, include a link to the original post: Spirit of the Gulf Challenge (or the facebook group — (Spirit of the Gulf facebook group. ) and put the icon below in your sidebar with a link to the original post (or the facebook group). Send Suzanne a link to your post and she will add the link to bottom of her post.

• Invite 5 of your friends or favorite artists to accept this challenge, include a link to the original post, the facebook page, copy this description of the challenge and the icon for their sidebar.

I challenge the following artists:

1. Sandra of Sandraws.
2. Cathy of Down a dusty lane
3. Marian of On painting daily
4. Alissa on flickr
5. Anyone else who is reading this and wants to accept the challenge.

Whilst others have been depicting the birds I wanted to show something that is equally part of the Gulf's ecosystem, but easily forgotten. My picture is watercolour on 180g cartridge (I've run out of watercolour paper). It is currently in a resting phase as I intended to add ink to the watercolour, but am now unsure whether to or not. Finally, the original is not as brown as this, but I can't seem to get a decent reproduction today, sorry.