Leonardo the Sea Turtle Painting

The truth is, I've always been creative, musical and artistic. But, I'm a late bloomer. I showed mild interest in art when I was a kid but only participated in the typical projects and classes that were given to everyone. I suppose I was too afraid for a period of time to express myself, nor did I realize what my artistic abilities were. In high school, I was editor of our literary magazine, called the Autograph. I recall drawing a small illustration for one of the essays that I had written. Primarily at the time, writing and piano were my artistic outlets, although I never really felt that I excelled in either one. Painting wasn't something I did at all, except for during an art class that I took as an elective in 11th grade. In college, I continued expressing myself through writing, but short of an elective art history class, I did nothing related to drawing or painting. At age 23, I met a girl who helped me realize that I could actually sing, something I had also never done in my life but had always secretly wished I could do. Once I discovered my latent talent for singing, I never looked back, but went full force into developing the voice that God has given me. I went to seminary and studied voice and theology. I even recorded numerous albums, mostly around Christmas, and have at this point performed solo concerts in churches and other venues throughout the Southeast. This is something that continues to be a part of my life. It was May of 2005 and my grandmother Kitty, whom I had known and loved my whole life, passed away at the age of 93. Being that hers was the first really close experience I ever had with death, I took her passing with a lot of difficulty. Over the following month, I felt that there must be something that I could do both to memorialize her and to overcome the crushing grief that I was feeling so strongly. Call it a whim or even a nudge from God, but the notion of doing a portrait of her landed squarely upon my mind. That very day, I drove to Michael's Art Supply store and purchased my first set of oils and painting supplies. Of course, I had no clue how to paint, so I also purchased a couple of instructional books about painting with oils. From there, the rest is history. The portrait of my grandmother was my first painting - ever. Each stroke that I made on that canvas was healing to my grieving soul. Eventually and to my surprise, I saw my grandmother appear before my eyes as I painted.