One such programme was an episode of BBC2's superb Natural World series (which currently airs on Fridays at 8pm) about the snow leopard. I'm a big fan of wildlife programmes, and whenever I find myself complaining about the exorbitant license fee that the BBC charges each year for the 'pleasure' of watching their mostly humdrum output, I invariably counter my own argument with the rationale that programmes such as Planet Earth, which was, and is, quite simply the most incredible series that's ever been made about the world's wildlife, would never get made if not for this mandatory levy.
As it happens, the precursor to this hour long insight into the near-mythological snow leopard was a brief segment in the Planet Earth series which focused on a quest to obtain footage of the elusive cats which yielded only the briefest of glimpses. This time, Pakistani journalist Nisar Malik, who ordinarily is more at home covering the conflict in Afghanistan, applied his unparallelled geographic knowledge of the country to lead a small team on an eighteen month quest to learn more about the snow leopard.
Watching the programme, I found myself amazed, surprised and inspired, all in the space of the fifty minute running time. Amazed due to the absolutely gorgeous footage of these beautiful animals - by sheer chance they discovered that the female they were tracking had a year old cub, and so we were priviledged to observe her teaching him to hunt, and to the, at times, touching way in which they interacted with each other. Surprised, because as Malik observed, when most people think of Pakistan they automatically get a mental picture of the country as an unstable nuclear power on the world's political stage, but in reality the people are peaceful and welcoming, and the country itself, with its huge mountaint ranges, is quite simply one of the most beautiful places on the planet.
The inspiration from this programme came, funnily enough, not from the leopards, but from a solitary shot of a Markhor, a member of the goat family with unusual spiraling horns, standing on a steep rocky slope, silhouetted against a vast grey sky.
For quite some time I've had an unfulfilled urge to paint using oils. I'm an enthusiastic photographer, which is why the shot of the Markhor caught my attention as the composition and the power of the simple image leapt off the screen, and so something inside me finally snapped and I found myself heading into town to pick up the necessary tools to try and replicate this stunning image in oil paints.
Once back home, I set up my new easel, prepared my palette (which only consisted of two colours, black and yellow) and froze the frame of the Markhor on my television. I lightly sketched the outline, and the picked up my brush and just dived head first into the painting.
I'm a big believer in just going for it when it comes to being creative. If it feels like the right thing, then just do it. Outside of art class at school, some twenty years ago now, I have never painted single thing in my life (aside from emulsioning various walls over the years), so as I began to see the paint form the picture on my televsion screen, I felt a growing sense of satisfaction, and a real feeling that in some way I was experiencing what 'proper' painters describe as the feeling of expressing themselves.
Once I'd applied black paint to the canvas to depict the mountainside and the Markhor, I picked up the yellow brush and began to fill in the sky. Why yellow? I'm not sure, it just felt right, until I accidentally mixed it with the black, that is, and found myself with a potential disaster on my hands.
However, I soldiered on, and by experimenting with the accidental mixture of colours, found that I had inavertently created the effect of a raging fire behind the silhouetted Markhor, and was hit again with that feeing of expression, and very satisfying it was too.
As for the finished painting, I'm really pleased with it. Considering it's my first effort, and in a medium that I had no experience in whatsoever, I think I've produced something that I can be proud to hang on my wall, and more importantly, unlike the many photographs that I have framed on my walls, and those of friends, this is an absolutely unique work of art. Even if someone offered me a million pounds for it, I don't think I could sell it, not only because it's my first, but because even if I replicated the circumstances of its creation perfectly, I could never paint it exactly the same way.
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