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Wild Cat Portrait series prints now available on Storenvy.com

See more prints on storenvy.com.

Mermaid series prints now available on Storenvy.com

See more prints on storenvy.com.

Cheetah Weeping

Inspired by the Zulu folktale concerning the origin of the black lines running down a cheetah's face from its eyes. These lines were the tear tracks of a mother cheetah weeping for her lost cubs. The young cheetahs had been stolen by a hunter who wanted to train them to hunt for him.

When the mother's grief came to the attention of an old man from the hunter's village, he informed the village elders of the hunter’s conduct. The villagers expelled the hunter. The old man returned the cheetah cubs to their mother, reuniting the family. But the tear tracks remained on the cheetah’s face as a reminder to hunters not to do wrong again.

The moral condemnation for keeping hunting cheetahs is certainly not universal. Listed here are a few (not all) of the peoples that had tamed cheetahs for hunting:

Jaguar Dreaming

I've decided that my tiger needed some company. :-) This is the 2nd piece in the Wild Cat Portrait series.

Jaguars in the mythology of the Americas:

• One of the aspects of the Aztec deity Tezcatlipoca is a jaguar who destroyed the world.
• The Mayans' many jaguar deities
• Priests of Chavin temple in Peru were depicted as able to shapeshift into jaguars (Paul Richard Steele, Handbook of Inca Mythology, p162)
• A Yanomamo Jaguar Myth

Get this jaguar as:

• 8.5"x11" (approx.) print (on storenvy.com)
• Masks, stickers, and more awesome products on redbubble.com)

Duyung

Mermaids appear in the folklore of the Malay world:

• Pulau Duyung (Mermaid Island) in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. According to tradition, mermaids once appeared there.
• A folktale from Sulawesi, Indonesia about how mermaids came to be.(CeritaRakyatNusantara.com)
• The Sundanese and Javanese myth of Nyai Loro Kidul, the Queen of the Southern Sea of Java, a deity who can appear in mermaid form.

Available as the following products:

Jengu

The inspiration for this illustration came from a dear Cameroonian friend who told me fascinating accounts of the worship of miengu (singular 'jengu'), mermaid-like water deities of the Duala and related ethnic groups in Cameroon.¹ My friend also spoke of a similar Mami Wata tradition in neighboring Nigeria.²

This mermaid's accessories are inspired by (but NOT claiming to be an authentic representation of) Duala jewelry from Cameroon and Yoruba jewelry from Nigeria. Marine life in mermaid's environment inspired by (but not intended to be a scientifically accurate representation of ;-) species of underwater life in the Gulf of Guinea.

Available as the following products:

• "Jengu" T-shirt (on Printify)
• laptop skin, laptop sleeve, tote bag, studio pouch, throw pillow (on redbubble.com)
• 8.5"x11" print (on storenvy.com)

Notes

1. Jengu on Wikipedia
2. Mami Wata on Wikipedia

"Tiger Tears" and "Resurrection of Third Prince Nezha" prints

Now available on bigcartel.com:

Tiger Tears

Inspired by a weird dream in which I saw a tiger bawling.

To answer the question of why he was crying, here's the dream's story :-)

Three friends - a tiger, a human and a donkey were crossing a desert. By the dress and looks of the human, the setting was probably somewhere in South Asia, maybe the Indian state of Rajasthan, which does have a tiger preserve, btw.