This piece was commissioned by a lovely lady that comes to the restaurant about once a week and I'm always her server. She asked me to do a piece that she wanted to give to her son and his partner. She gave me lots of freedom in terms of style and what I wanted to do. She only asked me that it's something asian and not the typical traditional chinese art. She also gave me a few pictures of her son's house and I was blown away by how pretty it was and how much artworks decorate his walls. And I feel at ease and easier to let go of this painting knowing that my art will be hung at a home that appreciates art.
After a few weeks of communication, everything was a go and lead to this result.
There were three main categories that I had to consider in coming up with this piece. Subject matter, color, and symbolism.
Since this piece is intended to be given to a son by his mother, I thought it was very appropriate to have the Chinese lioness and her cub as my subject matter. The pair literally represent mother and child but it also represent affection and life. It seems like the client's son means the whole world to her and she loves him dearly.
As for the color, the client told me she loves green/teal/aqua color range and that gave me the idea to represent the lions as jade. For the background, I wanted to do something that's very reddish/earth tone because the house that will be hanging this art is pretty dark, earthy, and some red to it. Pretty much very earth tone so it was too obvious for me to do it in that color scheme and it helps to pop out the green since it's on the opposite side of the spectrum.
For the symbolism, I decided to do water lily. At first, I knew I needed something to balance everything together. And in the early stage, I imagined my lions walking on water and the water lily automatically came to my head. And lucky me, half way through the painting, the client asked me to throw in some floral because her son's partner is a florist and she wanted the partner to enjoy this painting as well. To me, water lily represents overcoming obstacles, emerging of life and beauty. I'm not saying it was a burden for the client to raise her kid, but I'm sure there was a great obstacle for her to raise him to what he is today. Water lilies starts from the very bottom of the pond where nasty mud is the main ingredient. Through time, the sprout slowly swims through the water and eventually reaches to the surface of the water and bloom a beautiful blossom. What's ironic is that, something that starts from mud can eventually turn into something so beautiful. It's like the story of the ugly duckling turning into a beautiful swan.
Enjoy!
