Description
“I had set out that morning in the Maasai Mara hoping to find the “Famous Five” – a legendary coalition of male cheetahs whose teamwork and prowess had made them icons of the plains. I did find them later that day, but it was this solitary young male who truly stole the show.
He appeared out of the shimmering oat grass, moving with that effortless grace unique to cheetahs, before settling atop an old termite mound to survey his world. The light was soft, the air still, and for a brief moment he seemed completely at one with the landscape – as if the wind itself paused to remember him.
The reference photographs I took that day were breath-taking; they seemed to capture his calm confidence, his quiet strength. When I came to paint him, I wanted to convey that sense of peace and stillness rather than drama – so I tried a gentler, more subtle approach to my usual watercolour technique.
The result, I hope, speaks of that moment between movement and memory – where the world holds its breath, and beauty exists simply because it can.”
A moving insight into a beautiful watercolour by award-winning Kenyan artist Karen Laurence-Rowe who has won the overall top award at the David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the Year Exhibition in London twice, and continues to excel in her field.
