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I Love My Shoe

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I Love My Shoe

I started working on this commission about a month ago.. seems that it just kept calling me back.
The story is this.. at one of the Ohio zoos, the mating pair of jaguars were successful and momma jag gave birth to 2 healthy cubs.. one male and one female. I don't know the reason why the cubs were separated from their parents (maybe to make them a little more "people" friendly) but the vet took the female home to raise her for a while. She was named Maya and when she reached the age of "destroying" the house, she had to be found a new home.
When that happened, he accompanied her to her new home (another zoo) and was completely broken hearted.. from what he said.. so was she.
At any rate, he contacted me to see if I could do a piece on her. He gave me TONS of reference material from the age of about 4 weeks up to maybe 4-5 months.
It was slow going for a while until I figured out what I needed to do, then it just flowed out of me.
What you see here is only one quarter of the piece but I thought you'd like to see that SHOE.. and little Maya. Ah.. they are so cute when small huh.. but remember.. she will weigh around 130 pounds when full grown but would be able to take down a deer with no problem. So.. a man would be a cake walk..
No matter how cute she or any big cat cub is.. you always have to remember that they are a predator and will always be a predator. You can look.. but you can't touch.. well, not all the time, anyway.
I finished the piece October 15, 2007.. put in a little over 50 hours of work.