Charcoal engraving on board       

84 cm X 58 cm      

Original SOLD

You know I only paint animals I have met, which probably begs the question about who this lioness is and what she is saying to me from a mere 3 metres away.......

She and her two sisters were on the grasslands of Northern Kruger where we spent an hour or so observing while they luxuriated in the warm sun and long dry grass at the end of the dry season. Periodically one or other would move over to stir up one of her sisters in an early attempt to get a hunt organised but were generally ignored save for a short grumble or two.

As the clock moved around to 5pm the inevitable tension built to a point where this girl stood up all at once and plainly said to her sisters....'This is it.... the hunt begins!'

In the near distance we could hear impalas grunting and this just seemed to fire up the blood urges of the lead female. She left the long grass and walked at a tangent to our little hire car where I sat entranced as she flexed her tightly honed muscles. Stretching languidly, she approached the small tree. Without shifting her gaze from my eyes, she lazily flexed her massive paws.... gouging the razor-sharp claws deep into the bark.

Never once did she blink, nor did she shift her stare from me. Her message was very clear....'I am a LION....and you? You are a mere human so don't make me have to come over there!'............. She had nothing to worry about and the last we saw was she and her two sisters leaping on each other in mock hunting as they moved off in the general direction of the impalas.