Java is a leopard living in The Enchanted Garden at the Mirage Casino in Las Vegas. If you've never visited, I highly recommend you do so. It's a small facility but beautifully built and maintained, the cat enclosures are spectacular and the keepers treat each animal as if they were part of their family. This image is the second in the Captivity series and the photo reference for it was actually a surprise. I was clicking away and playing with my focus, trying to get the cat and not the chain link, (not easy to do for a novice like me). When I looked through my photos at the end of the day, this one jumped out at me. It was a risky decision to leave the chain link in the final artwork but I thought it made such a statement - yes Java is in captivity and hand raised but he is still wild, and that's something a cage cannot take away.

24" x 36"
Scratchboard and Ink
Original Artwork SOLD