The story behind the art...
Botswana, August 2019. We’re on safari. Hoping to see the wild dogs which had proved elusive on our trip so far.
We’d been watching a cheetah soaking up the evening sun when our guide told us to put away cameras, fasten our (imaginary) seatbelts and hold on tight...
...a pack of wild dogs were out on their evening hunt as the light began to fade.
What an experience! Wind in our faces, batted by tall grass, buffeted by rutty terrain. The dogs were chasing an impala. We lost them. We found them again. They kept a steady pace before four of them shot off into the distance. We followed and then stopped. Turned the engine off and listened. Calls of some sort. We then sped off across the dusk-lit scrub at breakneck speed.
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And then confusion…the dogs were now coming towards us. We stopped again and listened.
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“Lions” our Spotter cried! We pulled forward to see three female lions eating the freshly killed impala, snatched from the wild dogs.
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We barely had chance to reach for our cameras when there was the most enormous, spine-tingling roar. A huge male lion with the most magnificent mane entered the scene, stole the kill and settled down to eat his dinner as the final light of the day faded.
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It was riveting, it was electrifying, it was nature at its most captivating.
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I was immediately transported back to that evening in Botswana when I saw the reference photo. A magnificent lion and his magnificent mane. I simply had to draw it.
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I called it “The Thief”​
