After six months, I finally got it finished. I was even starting to joke around that it would be finished by the time my newest grand nephew who was born in January would be finishing up graduate school by the time I finished it.

It's based on some lyrics of a Japanese song that was translated into English. The theme song of an animae. I've heard at least three different English translated versions of the same season 2 theme song. But the painting is based on this one. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv-KRb…

I tried to have every object except the meerkat have a meaning. Butterfly-a goal or dream. The dream-catcher-the meerkat is pursuing its dream, compass-meerkat needs guidance to reach its dream. The Zulu bead-work pattern had its own meaning. Red represents a strong feeling, blue represents faith, yellow represents wealth, and white represents spiritual love and purity. Originally, the direction of the triangles was meant to represent "girl", but I guess I forgot I was going for that when I actually painted them. I did a lot of research on Zulu bead-work patterns. zulubeadculture.weebly.com/sym…. Anyway, the canteen represents a thirst for knowledge and the elephant represents wisdom.