0903 Plum-tuckered, Kool-Kat Lion Cub

Artist Code: 0903. Completed August 2009. Original. Water colour on Aquarelle Arches 100% hot pressed cotton rag paper. Unframed size 18” x 24”.

This painting was selected for the National Exhibition of Wildlife Art (NEWA) 2010; and in September 2013 it was featured on the Marwell International Wildlife Art Society Website Gallery (MIWAS).

I donated the unframed, mounted painting to charity and it was entered into a silent auction. The purchaser who won the bid has sent this framed version, now hanging on her wall. It was a lovely painting to do and I am so pleased with the money raised, and with the framed painting.

My friend and fellow artist, Juliet Gorman (potter: www.smoke-fired.biz) regularly travels to exotic places. I am usually invited to browse her magnificent photographs and, after a trip to Kenya and the Masai Mara Game Park in 2006, Juliet showed me a photograph of a pride of wild lions. I did not really notice the big family felines, as my attention was immediately drawn to this little chap, tuckered out under the sun-speckled foliage. He is so cute, I just had to paint him. (See Juliet’s photograph below.)

Poem:

On scratching stick he rests a paw,
To droop his eyelids is the law.
He rests in leaves amongst the shade,
At hot of day is idly laid.
The lion’s realm is dead of night—
A real kool-kat knows when to fight!

This is the lovely photograph which inspired me to paint this lion cub.