"Cheetah"

The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) uses termite mounds as natural lookout posts. Without retractile claws, it can neither defend a kill against lions nor climb trees like the leopard — its survival rests on vision and speed.

Standing on the termite mound, seen from the back at three-quarters, its silhouette is cut out against the white ground. This is not the animal in action being shown here — it is the animal on watch: attentive, tensed towards something we cannot see. The watercolour renders every black spot on the warm ochre of the coat, and leaves the dry grass around the mound barely sketched to isolate the subject.