Tuesday 29 January 2008

Panda Bear Legend




Illustration Friday's topic is Tales and Legends.
So my illustration is Moma Bear telling Baby Bear the Chinese legend of how the Panda acquired their beautiful colouring.


The legends begins with the panda as a totally white bear. One day a little girl happened to run across a white panda and a leopard fighting. Trying to save the defenseless panda she charged the leopard with a large bamboo shoot, striking him over and over again. The leopard was not hurt by the bamboo and turned on the little girl instead. This act of bravery saved the panda’s life but the little girl lost hers in the struggle.

All the white pandas held a funeral in honor of the brave little girl and wore black armbands as a sign of mourning. The black dye of the armbands, moistened by many tears from the pandas, began to run. When the pandas wiped their eyes, the armband left black marks. When the pandas consoled each other by hugging, the dye left black spots on their backs. When they covered their ears to block out the sound of crying, the black dye colored their ears.

12 comments:

Cheryl said...

Beautiful story and lovely illustration. I really like it.

Rowena said...

This was very tender tale. Thanks for sharing this legend and creating a beautiful illustration to go with it!

Anonymous said...

Lovely illustration Janie and great post to go with it, I've never heard that legend before:)

studio lolo said...

What a heartwarming legend. That's a new one to me. Thanks for sharing the story and the sweet illustration.

platitudinal said...

I’ve never heard this tale. It is very touching. Thank you for sharing. I love the picture of the Mama Panda telling the story to her baby and the how baby listens avidly. Their expressions are so sweet and tender. This is a beautiful and sensitive work.

Meridth McKean Gimbel said...

Love this illustration. Nice color palette. What's the medium?

life without novacaine said...

Wow, what a great legend! I love the take on this topic. Your illustration is very cute.

janie said...

thanks to everybody for your generous comments, very much appreciated.
hi Meridth, it was done digitally in photoshop.

Anonymous said...

Very interesting.

ELLA ELVIANA said...

i love your animal paintings---they're so realistic and beautiful!

Cynthia DiBlasi - Fine Art said...

The illustration is very well done, and what a beautiful story!

mike r baker said...

Beautiful illustration!