‘Caressa: requiem for a dying species’. Acrylic on board - 24 x 37 cm
This little painting was a demo for one of my wildlife classes. Amur leopards are threatened by poaching, encroaching civilisation, new roads, poaching of prey, forest fires, inbreeding, possible coexisting with disease carriers and transmitters, and exploitation of forests. Due to the small number of reproducing Amur leopards in the wild, the gene pool is so reduced that the population is at risk from inbreeding depression.
I like painting fur. The key with paintings like this is to not get trapped into painting individual hairs because from this distance we would not see those either, except perhaps a few that are highlighted - paint what you see, not what you know.
