This piece represents the first entry in the series of 16 artworks I painted in the spring of 2026. It is drawn primarily in Musou black, black ink, with gold leaf scattered over the page to suggest leaves drifting on the wind. As the opening piece of the series Beasts and Omens, it depicts the beasts in one of the gentlest forms. As pandas, creatures of black and white they are just as the yin and yang, general symbols of peace and balance. Right away I wanted to establish the idea, that an animal can be more as a figure with meaning. The scene draws heavily on Chinese calligraphy paintings, which classically show the sun cresting or rising between mountains. Here though, due to my own preferences I wanted it to be more representative of a moon, rather than a sun. So, to slightly weaken the heavy contrast of the strong red, I textured it ever so slightly with brown to imply the peaks and valleys of a natural moon.

As a meditating traveler, or monk, the panda sits centrally. A fully relaxed and unbothered sage contemplating either the world or nothing at all. Right behind him scuttle 10 little pandas, crawling up and down a large bamboo stalk. In Chinese art, bamboo means resilience and the many little panda cubs climbing it are like flourishing life on this otherwise enduring plant.