It has been a number of years now since I visited the mountain gorillas of central Africa, just recently I was reminded just what an impact it had upon my life. I have come to realize that I owe much of my career and passion for conservation to these wonderful fellow primates. So a few weeks ago when I was asked by an event organizer to draw a commission of a mountain Gorilla to raise money at one of their charity events, I was delighted to say the least.

The Dian Fossey Gorilla foundation had not held a charitable fund raising event for some time in the UK, so it had been decided that to celebrate the forthcoming UK premiere of 'Titus - the Gorilla King'. this would be held as a premiere evening for celebrities and supporters, in one of London's top venues, the BAFTA theatre.

Although I mentioned I was delighted with the chance to give something back to this wonderful cause, I was slightly apprehensive due to the short time I had been given. also fitting it in between the already massive work load I had amassed, was to be some task. Nevertheless once I commit to something I always like to take it through to completion, with little hesitation I completely immersed myself into the picture for the last few weeks.

The result was incredibly satisfying, somewhat reminiscent of an earlier picture I had drawn of a young Mountain Gorilla called Gasigwa. For those of you who have read my book or been along to one of my talks you will be more than familiar with the sad story of Gasigwa the orphaned gorilla. For this commission I had chosen to draw a female gorilla from a group I had seen in the DRC in 1997. This particular gorilla had been caught in a snare and to free herself had meant amputation of one of her hands. She had fortunately survived to make a remarkable recovery by constantly licking her wound. It was from this story the new picture was titled 'Healing'.

For those of you interested the event took place last Friday and was set to be hosted by Sir David Attenborough who unfortunately was stuck in Paris due to the channel tunnel fire and was unable to make it. The film itself was an incredible piece of documentary, I must add this was somewhat enhanced by the fact it was broadcast onto the big screen in high definition. It told the story of Titus an incredibly successful silverback who has fathered a seriously large amount of offspring over the course of his life. He was originally from the group who were studied by Dian Fossey back in the seventies and his uncle was the famous silverback Digit who was highlighted in the film 'Gorillas in the mist'. Titus was originally brought to our screens by Sir David Attenborough in his legendary 'life on earth' series, when he was seen as a baby crawling about the presenter. I will say the film did leave me with the slight feeling of melancholy but this is probably just me, as gorillas always make me quite emotional for one reason or another but mostly because of their precarious situation.

After the film had finished there was a Q&A with various members of the DFGF team including Ian Redmond the renowned primatologist. To cut a long story short the positive news is that Mountain Gorillas are actually thriving, not in a huge way,but their numbers are definitely on the up. I believe this is partly due to the brilliant work of the Dian Fossey Gorilla fund and the Rwandan government who under the leadership of Paul Kagame have done a huge amount to protect and conserve the habitat of these beautiful animals.

I had a wonderful time at this superbly presented evening and it was nice to be introduced to the ambassador of Rwanda and congratulate him on the work of his government focusing on the mountain gorillas.The picture will remain on auction for a few weeks and anyone interested in placing a bid can do so online. Details for this will follow as soon as I have them. 'Titus - Gorilla King' will be broadcast by the BBC sometime in November this year.





                                                           'Healing'