Is that me? No, just a panda. But in a way, I’ve always felt connected to them.
I wanted to paint a panda as a tribute to how much they mean to me, not just as a childhood favorite but as something that has followed me through life, almost like a totem animal. The calendar I have hanged on my wall reminded me that March 16th is National Panda Day (Where "national"?probably in the USA, but why not make it a World Panda Day?), so it felt like the perfect excuse to paint one more panda (not like I haven't drawn enough pandas along the years I've been drawing).
Unlike what many may think and believe, I find pandas fascinating in how they exist. They are definitely not the most skilled or the smartest, yet they endure. They don’t fight for dominance; they prefer to keep to themselves, focused on their own world. People see them as clumsy, shy, or even unremarkable in their habits, but despite that (or maybe because of it) they captivate others just by being there, just by existing in their own way.
It’s something I relate to. There are times when I feel like I’m just enclosed in a space, doing nothing particularly interesting, yet somehow, people still find something they like in what I do. ("Cute" is probably the word I've heard the most in my own artwork, as same as the adjective most used to describe a panda bear, I guess we are nothing but just cute).
This painting was done with acrylics, I’ll be exhibiting it at the Texas Furry Fiesta art show. I also painted the sides of the frame, I'm sharing some pictures of those in the first comment of this submission on my Telegram art channel, same as the recorded time-lapse process, though my phone decided to compress three hours of work into a 22-seconds clip (I really don't understand the time-lapse mode on an iPhone, I wish I could adjust how many pictures it takes per minute). You can watch both at: https://t.me/panda_paco
I also shared the scanned version, plus many unpublished drawings and WIPs on my Patreon and Ko-Fi, also at supporting me you can get exclusive products by me that anywhere can be gotten. Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/pandapaco and Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/panda_paco Thank you!!
